Lacking an Anchor
by dogbertcarroll
Summary: Willow tries to keep Xander safe, by sending him away from battle using a teleport spell she'd barely read. Xander's in for quite a trip, pity the multiverse.
1. Chapter 1

Series Title: Safe is a four letter word

Synop: A spell cast on Xander sends him careening through the cosmos, leaping from world to world, hoping that someday... he'll leap to a world that has Twinkies!

**Lacking an Anchor **

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over the intellectual property of Mutant Enemy and DC comics.

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Xander stared around him in confusion. One minute he'd been in the middle of melee and now he was in the middle of some street, holding his axe, covered in demonic fluids and seriously wondering what was going on.

He quickly got out of the road. 'Last thing I need is to get hit by a car. That'd be a whole new level of embarrassing. I can just see Buffy yelling about me not being able to cross the street without help. It's like she doesn't want me around anymore.'

Restfield Cemetery had gothic looking buildings, but this city took gothic to a whole new level. It was almost familiar. Glancing around at the old fashioned cars and towering buildings he knew he'd seen this place before, but where? 'New York, maybe…'

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"What did you do," Buffy asked carefully, trying not to upset the red haired witch, who had made Xander vanish in a burst of light.

"You saw the demon behind him, it was big and had claws," Willow exclaimed.

"Yeah, that's why I killed it. X asked me to watch his six while he took care of the oozing things," Faith snorted, a bit pissed that Willow had done something to Xander when he wasn't in any real danger. Well, no more than a battle with demons usually was.

"I cast 'Safe Return' on Xander. It's a teleport spell that sends the target to a safe place, so he's probably in the library," Willow said, blushing under everyone's gazes.

"However did you find Mor'tan ichor," Giles asked, a bit concerned that Willow was casting spells that he thought were above her level, but curious as to where she got the rare ingredients.

"Mor'tan ichor," Willow replied, a bit confused.

"Yes, Mor'tan ichor for casting the anchor. While I know that cannabis is easy enough to procure for high school students, Mor'tan ichor is notoriously hard to come by, as Mor'tans are rather reluctant to part with it and are themselves exceedingly rare besides," the watcher explained, beginning to get a bad feeling about this.

"Anchor," the young witch repeated nervously.

"Oh dear," Giles took off his glasses and began polishing then absently, as he tried to figure out how they were going to find their wayward friend.

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"This may seem like a strange question, but why are you out here with a battle axe and covered in gunk?"

Xander spun around to find a strangely dressed kid, hanging upside down from a grappling line. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Why are you dressed as Robin and where am I?"

"I AM Robin and you're in Gotham. Did you lose a fight with a jello mold or what?"

"A bunch of sp'kan'lam and I won, unfortunately they tend to pop like a frog in a microwave when they die. It's not dangerous, unless you get their goop all over you, then you have to deal with the whole 'aspect of demon' thing going on, which is pretty random in its effects unfortunately, cause being able to lick my forehead would probably get me a lot more dates." Xander babbled absently, as he realized why things had looked so familiar and how much Jesse would envy him right about now.

"Aren't you covered in their goop right now," The boy wonder asked, still not quite sure if this was a practical joke or the man was just crazy.

"I've been hunting demons for a while now and after a little accident with a mouthless demon that almost drove a friend of mine insane, Giles got us some nifty amulets so we could avoid that problem. Hmmm. I really need to get this stuff off before it hardens though and if this really is Gotham then Batman will probably pop out of some shadow and bitch about me not having proper ID. Man, Bruce is a tightass about those things. I wonder if I start yelling out supes secret ID if he'd show up and help me. That's a thought." Xander's stream of consciousness spewed out into the air to an increasingly pale sidekick.

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"So, let me get this straight," Faith said, "You found a spell, but didn't bother to read the whole thing or test it even, before casting it on someone who was suppose to be your best friend, when he was in no real danger, cause I had his back." She was really enjoying paying Red back for the slut comments she had made behind her back.

Willow whimpered and sank lower in her chair as Oz comforted her.

"And Blondie here don't think it's important enough to put a lot of effort into finding him, cause he ain't her undead fuck toy."

"Hey, I just think that if the spell sent him somewhere safe, then maybe it's best if we leave him there for a while, until things are a little less demony here. It's not like I plan on abandoning him or anything. I just think we have bigger problems then one guy, who isn't even that big a help and keeps getting in the way, being sent someplace safe. That is the keyword here, 'safe'. The world however isn't safe at the moment and we need to take care of that before worrying about anything else!" Buffy finished, glaring at the dark haired slayer.

"I thought he'd be sent here," Willow sniffled, "it said someplace that feels safe. Where else would he go?"

"The number of places that are safe are beyond counting. He could be in any number of places, I daresay. At this moment he could be at a payphone in England trying to figure out the international dialing instructions or on a beach in Florida, trying to wash ichor off himself," Giles said, trying to show his slayer some support.

Oz tilted his head and considered what everyone had said. "Home"

Angel shook his head. "I already checked and he wouldn't consider his house safe either. The vampire version of Willow has been there, not to mention Dru."

"See?! He invited vampires in and he knows about all this stuff. It's best if he just stays out of it before he gets someone killed," Buffy growled.

"He didn't invite them in. He won't even invite me in," Angel said, a bit stiffly. "That's really not a surprise though."

"So they got the invite from the 'rents?" Faith asked, curious about the vamp's tone.

"They didn't need an invitation," Angel began only to have the sniffling girl interrupt him.

"Do his parents have a welcome mat," Willow questioned, worried about what the vampire version of herself could have done, had Xander been home when she was there.

"No, it's not that either. None of the Harris' consider it a home, so the normal threshold protections are really weak. You usually only see that kind of effect on motel rooms and vacation rentals and only rarely on those."

"There's nothing in the watcher's journals about weak thresholds," Wesley stated, clearly wondering why the Watchers didn't know about it.

"The threshold is weakened if the people who live there don't consider it a home, but that's rare. Most cases of a weak threshold are from places where they consider something a home, but don't actually have legal ownership or aren't planning on staying there long," Angel paused to see if anyone was going to interrupt him again before continuing, "Xander obviously doesn't consider it a home, it's just the place he sleeps at. A weak threshold will allow vampires entrance, as long as they have no hostile intentions, which leaves most vampires out."

"So, neither Drusilla nor the vampire version of Miss Rosenberg had hostile intentions towards the boy? I find that rather difficult to believe." Wesley took off his glasses and chewed on the ear piece, as he considered the possibilities and what wasn't adding up.

"They had no 'hostile' intentions towards him. Their intentions didn't have to be benign, just not hostile." Angel carefully stated.

"How do you know what their intentions were and how do you know both of them had been in his house," Wesley asked, figuring something was still missing from what Angel was saying.

The ensouled vampire winced; he'd been hoping he wasn't going to be asked this. "Because both times I had to untie him, clean him up, and help him get dressed."

Things got quite loud in the library for the next several minutes, until Wesley stuck two fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. "That is enough. We aren't going to find anything out by pointless bickering. Angel, could you please expand on what the situation was?"

Everyone quieted down, shocked at Wesley being forceful and useful, for once.

"He was kinda... tied to the bed and had some various... injuries," Angel finished uncomfortably.

"What a hypocrite! He gets all mad about me and Angel, but he's sleeping with two crazy evil vamps," Buffy yelled.

"Wow, Buff. I didn't know you were that kinky. I think most people consider being tied down and raped a bit different than willing climbing on top of a corpse, but hey, whatever floats your boat." Faith said, enjoying getting in some licks against Miss Perfect, as she was sure Xander hated vampires much too much to ever consider having sex with one.

"Raped," Buffy said, clearly confused. "Guys can't get raped. Their thingies wouldn't get hard unless they wanted it."

The blond actually shrank under the combined glares of most of the room. "They can?"

"Yes, Buffy. It is an automatic reflex, quite beyond our control. Not to mention the mental powers of Drusilla and quite possibly the vampiric Willow, means they could have made him see someone else in their place," Giles said gruffly, polishing the hell out of his glasses.

"But raping someone would be hostile... right," Buffy asked, trying to dig herself out of the hole she was in.

"Not to a vampire," Angel said gently, "and considering the questionable sanity of the two vamps in question..."

Buffy winced, as she thought of what those two would consider friendly behavior.

"Do you regularly check on Mr. Harris," Wesley asked, still feeling something was missing.

"Yes, I usually pass by his place to make sure he's Ok, if he isn't with the group and something is going on," Angel admitted.

"And why would you do that? I mean, from the behavior the two of you exhibit towards one another, I'd assumed you didn't like each other," The younger watcher probed.

"We don't," The vampire confirmed, "But I owe him. I owe him a lot!"

"What for," Faith asked, curious about how the normal guy rated so much.

"For one thing, he saved Buffy, when I couldn't do anything," Angel said, a haunted look in his eyes.

"Angel, that wasn't your fault. Who knew you'd need to know CPR in the Master's cave," Buffy tried to reassure him.

"That was just one of the times when he saved you. There was Angelus jumping you in the cemetery when you were sick, there was the time Angelus came to the hospital and Xander was there by himself and 'convinced' him to leave without a fight. I'm sure there were a couple of times I wasn't there that he saved you. I also owe him a lot for Acaltha."

"He got you sent to hell," Buffy growled, "if he hadn't lied..."

Angel interrupted her, "Then Hell would have become my permanent home."

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"So you aren't trying to blackmail me," Batman questioned his latest guest, who was currently wearing some borrowed clothes and devouring one of Alfred's meals like it was the best food he'd ever eaten.

"Not remotely," Xander assured him and started in on another helping of mashed potatoes with gravy. "I'm just saying that since I know your secret identity and you know nothing about me, that you'd probably spend a lot of time worrying and obsessing about it, so why don't I stick around here, where you can keep an eye on me?"

"What do you get out of it?" The cowled man searched Xander's eyes for any trace of a hidden agenda.

"I get to eat Alfred's cooking," the dimensional traveler smiled, "and... swim in your pool, watch your TV, the usual lazy houseguest setup, while I wait for one of the JLA or the people at home to figure out a way for me to get home."

"How can I be sure you're telling the truth?"

"Get Martian Manhunter down here to look through my memories. I know you like to go through complex scenarios and figure out what anyone will do in any given situation, but let's skip all that and go with the simple mental probe deal, so you'll be able to sleep at night without wondering what I'm up to."

"That... sounds reasonable," Batman grudgingly admitted.

"You're thinking it sounds too reasonable, aren't you?" Xander snickered.

"Maybe."

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"What," Buffy yelled.

"The demons that tortured me had fun, lying to me about how Angelus had succeeded in sending the entire Earth to Hell and explained how, since my weakness was what allowed him his freedom, I was responsible. I would have earned an eternity in the pits for that and don't try and claim that you would have stopped Angelus. You let him run free and he killed dozens of people and the vampires he lead killed even more. I spent a century in the pits for the crimes I freed him to commit and I got off easy. If Xander hadn't lied to you, then you would have gone easy on him and then I would have spent an eternity roasting in the pit and for letting it happen, you would have probably been chained up with me. I owe him my soul and yours'," Angel fell silent, as did everyone as the enormity of the situation sunk in.

"I don't think I can be sentenced to hell for not doing something, otherwise we'd all be in trouble for not curing cancer or stopping murders in other cities. There is no end to what we're not doing," Buffy explained.

"Yes, but you physically stopped other people from dealing with him, which left him free to kill," Angel said firmly, having had plenty of time to brood... err, think about the situation.

"I couldn't let you go, not like that," Buffy sniffed, tears trickling down her face.

"I was already gone and it hurts to think that you couldn't tell the difference between me and HIM," Angel snarled. "The body may be the same, but we sure as hell aren't and since my soul was restored by Willow, she now bares the same guilt if he gets free again. That's another reason I... we need Xander back, because if Angelus gets loose again, I can count on him to do the right thing! Of course I'm also a bit worried he'll jump the gun, but that's still better than the alternative."

Wesley spoke up after a couple of minutes, trying to steer the conversation back on track, "So, has Mr. Harris spoken to anyone about his ordeal?"

"What?" Giles looked over at Wesley.

"He was raped at least twice and I was wondering if he had some friend he confided in that he talked to about it, to get it off his chest. He may have felt the need to unburden himself without mentioning they were vamps, but he had to have talked to someone."

"Willow," Giles asked the hacker, who burst into tears and buried her face in Oz's chest, while crying about being a bad friend.

"Buffy," Giles attempted and winced at Faith's snort.

"She'd probably tell him he was askin' for it and he was invitin' it, cause guys can't get raped and then gone on to tell him how useless he was," Faith replied, looking more than a little pissed as she thought of events in her own past.

Buffy just stared at the floor mutely.

The Oz question was met with a headshake and Angel a confused shrug before speaking, "I tried to talk about it to him once, but he gave me a strange look and asked what I was talking about."

"Maybe he repressed it," Willow ventured, remembering her mother talking about repressed memories.

"Or someone else repressed it for him," Wesley muttered. "Exactly how strong was their gift for domination?"

"Well, they did tie him down," Faith said, "so they had some basic skills at least."

The younger watcher looked over at his charge and repressed the urge to strangle her, as it would probably just get him killed. "Some master vampires have the gift of Domination, it's a mental ability that allows them to alter memoires, cause hallucinations, implant commands, and so forth. Drusilla and Rosenberg could have easily made him forget they had ever visited him and may have implanted some commands. Did he exhibit any changes in behavior after the events in question?"

"He wanted the vampiric Willow sent home," Angel said as it began to dawn on him, how unlike the boy that was.

"How is that unusual? Having a vampire clone of Miss Rosenberg around is hardly safe and most people find it difficult, if not impossible, to kill a demon that wears a loved one's face," Wesley asked.

"X woulda staked her. He's got a mad on for vamps and while I can't say I know him all that well, I do know he hasn't passed up any chance to dust one that I've seen."

"Staking someone you love isn't that easy," Buffy replied sadly.

"He staked Jesse," Willow announced.

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Martian Manhunter stared at Batman, "You summoned me, Dr. Fate, and Superman, for a simple mind scan?"

"He asked to be scanned, so I decided to add some unforeseen variables to the equation, just in case it was a trap of some sort," Bruce stated as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Superman scratched his head, "I can't tell if that's paranoia or good planning."

"Good planning," Xander ventured. "I mean, here is an unknown guy who shows up knowing everyone's secret identities and suggests a course of action that would put him within arm's reach of the League's strongest telepath. It'd be the perfect opportunity to work some mind controlling mojo and use him to take over the league."

"That's a good point," Superman admitted.

"And while we're on the subject, can you really be considered paranoid when you have a large number of dangerous assholes after you," The dark haired dimensional traveler pointed out far too cheerfully.

"Another good point, but there has to be a limit," The kryptonian argued.

"If he had all your super powers he could relax a bit, but as a 'normal' human with several enemies that can match you in strength, I'm going to have to say paranoia is a survival trait," Xander countered, making quote marks in the air with his fingers while saying normal.

Superman scratched his chin thoughtfully.

Batman had remained silent up to this point. "As you can see he is extremely knowledgeable about us, as well as... helpful. It makes me uneasy; I'm not used to it."

Dr. Fate nodded and moved his hands in what everyone assumed was an eldritch manner while chanting in a language that hurt to hear.

Xander stared at his own softly glowing form worriedly, "What did you just do?"

"I cast several spells to neutralize magic and telepathy, as well as a diagnostic spell that doubles as a truth spell," Dr. Fate's voice echoed from his helm.

"I dislike magic, it never seems to work right around me," Xander muttered nervously.

"Truth," Dr. Fate announced.

"I have no plans of revealing anyone's secret identities."

"Truth."

"I don't know how I got here."

"False."

"Other than by magic, obviously," Xander rolled his eyes.

"Truth."

"I'm not planning on causing any trouble."

"False."

"With the exception of annoying people."

"Truth."

Batman broke in, "Do you mean to cause harm to any of the league?"

"Nope."

"Truth."

"Are you going to do anything that I would disapprove of?"

"Tons! If I spend the day telling dirty jokes to batgirl, you'll disapprove of me distracting her. If I spend the day watching TV and vegging, you'll disapprove of me being lazy. If I spend the day doing anything fun, you'll disapprove of it as frivolous and if I spend the day doing anything serious, you'll disapprove because you'll wonder what I'm up to. You are so anal retentive about things that if we stuck a lump of coal up your ass we'd get a diamond," Xander finished, exasperatedly.

"True..err I mean..." Fate cleared his throat and tried to pretend he hadn't said anything.

Superman, through superhuman effort, managed to keep from laughing, but his face turned a light shade of pink.

Batman growled.

"Don't blame me if you don't like the answers, I pretty much call things as I see them and I figure you're mature enough to handle the truth."

"False."

"Fine! I don't think you're mature enough to handle the truth, but I thought you'd at least have enough self control to fake it."

"Truth."

"If I really wanted to upset you I'd tell you that you're parents are proud of what you've done, but think you put way too much pressure on yourself and your mother thinks it's about time for you to settle down and get married and thinks Diana is the perfect girl because she has nice child bearing hips," Xander remarked thinking about an alternaverse comic he'd read.

Batman almost went for him before Fate said, "Truth."

"How do you know," Batman demanded.

"The same way I know Clark's parents, both sets, are proud of him and what he's done and think he should marry Lois already and give them some grandkids. Jor'el would also like his son to work on expanding the bounds of science a bit. Sorry, Clark, but you're dad is a bit of a geek and would like people to see you have brains to go with the brawn."

"Truth."

"How do you know all this?" Superman asked in awe, some of his persistent worries about his birth parents' satisfied.

"I grew up on the mouth of Hell and have spent the majority of my High School career helping keep demons from opening the gates of Hell. I've monitored your dimension as a form of entertainment. It's kept me from going nuts and helped me keep my sense of humor when things have gotten dicey," Xander carefully worded his reply, figuring that telling people they were fictional characters was a bit... mean.

"Truth."

"I'm not any kind of superhero, I'm just a guy who does the best he can in a really bad situation to keep myself and my friend's alive. All of my friends are superheros with special powers or training. I'm just the guy that tries to keep them sane and fetches the donuts!"

"Truth."

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"Who's Jessie," Faith asked.

"He was our best friend since we were eight. Jessie and Xander were like Butch and Sundance, always getting into trouble and me trying to keep them out of it. Buffy saved me and Jessie her first day here, but he got recaptured and turned. They were like brothers, until Darla, Angelus' sire, turned him. He talked to me about it, afterwards, said it was half accident and half on purpose. He just had to push hard and it was done. He said Jessie would never forgive him if he let a demon run around with his face, killing people," Willow rambled, wiping her eyes.

"I'd have to say he'd stake you for the same reasons then, Red," The dark haired slayer said, "and that goes doubly so for any vamp clones, since he'd still have you around to let him know he did the right thing."

"I think it's safe to say the vampire Rosenberg did more than just repress his memories of certain events," Wesley ventured.

"But I don't remember her messing with the mind's of anyone while she was here," Willow protested.

"She could require a certain amount of time alone and without interruption to make use of those abilities," Giles offered.

"Was she alone for any length of time with anyone else here," Wesley asked.

Willow raised her hand, "I sorta ran into her here, but I don't recall her doing any of the mind mojoing."

Giles rubbed his temples, "The fact that you don't recall anything means little, as she could have erased the memories afterwards. I think we're going to have check you and Xander, when he returns, for implanted suggestions or commands."

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Dr. Fate waved his hand and the glow around Xander faded. "I think we can dispense with this now."

Xander rubbed his arms. "Damn, goose bumps."

"Manhunter, if you will," Batman waved the silent green alien forward.

"Wasn't Fate's spell enough proof," Superman questioned.

"I just want to verify the information. I always try to verify everything from at least two sources before accepting any data as a fact or a possible fact."

"It's just common sense," Xander spoke up, before Superman could say anything.

Manhunter stared at Xander intently, telepathy being a little less flashy then most super powers.

Xander felt like his brain was itching. "I don't suppose now would be a good time to mention I've been possessed several times, would it?"

"A minute ago that would have been nice to know, now I already know that. You have multiple memories and thought patterns overlaying one another, I'm surprised you're still sane," Manhunter replied, still sifting through Xander's multiple mindset.

Xander quickly grew bored and a bit annoyed at how long it was taking. "Find anything interesting?"

"I've found the reason you're still sane."

"Are you sure?"

"What, that you're still sane or that I've found the reason," Manhunter grinned.

"Score one for the green guy! Either one," Xander snickered.

Superman looked at the alien telepath curiously, as Batman tensed up.

"I'm copying his style of humor. I never realized that personality trait was so versatile. He has it as an emotional defense and offense, as well as a tool to diffuse tense situations. He also seems to use it and body language as a form of camouflage and a way to insert ideas into a group so they'll think they're their own. As you'll recall, I learned to deal with humanity by imprinting on another, this is just an extension of that," Manhunter replied, to calm down his worried teammates.

"Damn it! I knew I should have had that copyrighted," Xander complained.

"Yes and I'm also stealing all the works you read by Stephen King. We don't have any of his books here and I'll consider that fair payment for being forced to dig through endless reams of porn!"

"I'm a teenage male and you should feel honored that I'd share my porn sash with you," Xander said firmly. "And seriously, stealing my sense of humor is completely out of bounds."

Xander winced as a series of images flashed through his mind. "Ewww, what was that?!"

"My people's porn. Now imagine going through reams of THAT and you'll understand how I feel."

"OK, point taken. Now about my question..."

"You are still sane because two other people, and I use the word loosely, have gone through your brain and reinforced certain traits, so you wouldn't go completely mad."

"I don't remember anyone shuffling through my brain, except Buffy and that was pretty much just receiving broadcast thoughts..." Xander trailed off. "I can only think of one 'person' who could have played with the toys in my attic, so I'm thinking I'm really not going to like the answer to this, am I?"

"No, I can pretty much guarantee you aren't going to like it. Here's number one."

Xander twitched and alternately looked pissed and pale for a minute before settling back down. "That was so very, very wrong. Fun in parts, true, but that was mainly because of the Joyce overlay."

Manhunter snickered.

Xander groaned and smacked himself in the head. "Pun not intended. I meant because of who I thought it was, although I'll have to admit, not having to breath has certain benefits. Shouldn't I be majorly traumatized by this and what else did she do?"

"I'm blunting any emotional trauma, which, due to your chauvinism, would have been light anyway. If it had been Spike..."

Xander turned green enough to look like Manhunter's distant cousin.

"Exactly. It was just Drusilla and she spent quite a bit of time in between... reinforcing bits of your core personality with the hyena. Hyenas, despite their reputation, are pack animals with social patterns very much like man. In action this means you're fiercely loyal to your pack, even if they don't deserve it. I'm working on reasserting your original mindset and blunting your hunting urges, which she also reinforced. It may have helped you deal with the insanity you call your life, but it's not really healthy in the long run."

"OK, I'm seeing that the loyalty may have been abused a bit, but the hunting urge I may still need. I mean, it's difficult enough to kill vamps as is"

"I'm not touching the fighting instincts, just the urge. Taking stupid risks because of an overblown since of loyalty and bloodlust, or rather dust lust, would actually lower the number of kills, since you'd die much earlier."

"OK, I can buy that. Who is number two on the mental mojoing countdown and what did they play with?"

Manhunter resumed snickering.

"Damn it! It's going to be a replay isn't it?"

"Almost. Here it is."

Xander blinked and shifted a bit uncomfortably in his chair. "OK, that wasn't too bad."

"She reinforced your attraction to herself and implanted some subtle commands to encourage obedience, nothing overpowering, just a strong sense of guilt if you went against her will. She also suppressed some of the soldier's memories that were giving you nightmares and reinforced your will and ability to keep calm under fire with the soldier persona. Anything you'd like changed?"

"Remove the compulsions and what memories did she erase?"

"Done. She suppressed memories of being a field medic during the Korean war."

"That's strange, I thought my soldier memories were from more recent times."

"It seems to be a random sampling from various large scale engagements, with modern wars making up the bulk of them. There is actually a section from a Roman legionnaire as well. I'd say it was a rather... chaotic mix," the big green alien snickered.

"Joy, just what I always wanted, a nebulous collection of random memories of battles throughout time. Just to make sure, there doesn't happen to be any head chopping involved and someone yelling 'There can be only one', right?"

"Not a one and just for that remark, I'm stealing your Highlander collection. I'll borrow some money from Bruce and see about making the movies, skipping the abortion of a sequel and re-writing the third into something other than a commercial for the TV series," Manhunter said firmly, having unintentionally absorbed a lot more than just Xander's sense of humor.

"How about doing 'The Crow' movies? The first one was great, but it went downhill after that," Xander said, as the rest of the JLA member stared at the two in confusion.

Batman broke in, before they could get too involved in their discussion about which movies that Xander had watched would make the best films here, "So you both agree he's no threat?"

Manhunter and Fate nodded.

Xander shrugged, "Unless you have demons or the undead walking around I'll probably just play couch potato, but I call dibs if you get any in!"

"Fine," Batman sighed, a bit frustrated at having wasted so much time on a non-threat, when he could have been out making the streets safer for the children of Gotham.

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"So Grundy, what's the next big heist," a walking stereotype of a gangster asked their leader.

"Grundy say, we kidnap the richest people in Gotham and hold them for ransom," a large white figure in half rotted clothes replied in a deep and raspy voice.

"But what about Batman, Boss?"

"Grundy say, Batman not a problem. Grundy take care of bat."


	2. Chapter 2

**Fun and Games**

_He raised his muzzle and sniffed the air, scenting his prey, as he slunk along the ground, careful not to rustle the greenery around him and give away his position. The edge of the plains gave way to flora intensive scenery faster than he expected. It was hot and sweaty and truthfully, wearing fur was probably not a good choice, but it allowed him to move around undetected by Charlie and that made up for a lot. His four legs made barely a sound as they danced over the forest floor following the spoor of his target. He approached the river slowly, using every ounce of stealth he had. The prey had stopped for a drink from the orange river and that was its fatal error. He pounced, startling the full tray of breakfast into motion, but it was far too late. The eggs couldn't escape with the sausage on its back, likewise the toast was crippled by the butter and grape jelly clinging to it. Once more the prey had fallen to his elite hunting skills and now he would feast! _

"Good Morning, Master Harris. It's almost seven am and you were up a bit late with Master J'onn, so I thought breakfast in bed was in order. One can't start the day without proper sustenance after all." Alfred bustled around the room preparing clothes and food for the waking dimensional traveler simultaneously and with little effort.

"Good Morning, Alfred. The food smells great, but can we skip the Harris? The only Mr. Harris I know is someone I try my best to be nothing like and Master brings up a lot of bad memories for those of us who grew up on a Hellmouth."

"I suppose so. What would you like to be called," the ever efficient British butler asked, while setting a tray of food in Xander's lap with one hand and passing him a copy of the daily paper with the other.

Xander smiled broadly. He'd been a bit afraid of offending Alfred, but both those words made him uncomfortable and he was glad it wasn't going to be a problem. "This is a whole new world, so I can be anyone I want to be, unfortunately even here Hugh Hefner is taken. I know, call me Bond, James Bond."

Alfred paled and his hands trembled for a second, before he regained control of himself and suddenly in place of the Wayne's most trusted servant was a very, very dangerous man. "How did you know?"

"Know," Xander asked dumbly, wondering if someone had changed the script on him and not given him the new one.

Alfred didn't say a word; he just studied him with a steely gaze that quickly flushed all the sleep from his system.

"I didn't know that Bond actually existed here," Xander said carefully, as he puzzled out what was going on and tried to fit the pieces together. "But I know you can't be him. He was much too... exuberant to ever retire. He either died in the saddle or vanished on a case. If you want my opinion, he's probably frozen on ice somewhere, waiting for his version of Dr. Evil to show back up."

"Sorry, I forgot you aren't native to this dimension. Old reflexes, you understand." He seemed to fade a bit and suddenly he was just Alfred again. "I must apologize for my behavior, it was quite unseemly, but in my defense it was a bit of a shock. Even Master Bruce doesn't know about my past."

Xander blinked as the adrenalin rush faded. "Batman uses a lot of really high tech and hidden gadgets, built into practically everything he owns. Your middle name wouldn't happen to begin with a 'Q', would it?"

Alfred seemed to be debating with himself for a moment before he answered, "No, it's Roger...with an' R'."

The dark haired young man nodded and smiled. "Enough about the past, it's just one more thing I'll keep mum on while I'm here," Xander's mind skipped to a possible solution to something he'd worried about not being able to change. "Like the fact that the Joker will shoot Barbra Gordon in the back and paralyze her from the waist down sometime in the future or his later brainwashing of another of BMW's adopted offspring. There just aren't enough beautiful redheads in this world to risk losing one to an accident in the hospital if the surgery doesn't go as planned and if that's avoided with enough force the other kid'll be in the clear."

"Quite. Accidents do happen, for instance the chemical smilex is rather unstable and someone who experiments with it could have an allergic reaction to a common chemical and expire," Alfred suggested. "Of course there is also the strange fact that the Joker is quite pale, like Solomon Grundy, that zombie that shows up around Gotham every couple of months."

Xander's grin threatened to consume his head. "It's a shame, but accidents do happen and I doubt the courts would really come down all that hard on someone who was just defending himself... even if it was with a battle axe."

Xander had no moral qualms about killing someone like the Joker. That... man had killed hundreds of men, women, and children via gas and bombs alone. As far as the brown haired Scooby was concerned the Joker was a demon mislabeled as a man, who just hadn't been to hell yet or a 'dead man walking' if he ever got within axe's reach. He thought it was rather nice that there wasn't the slightest doubt that the Joker was evil, it was a nice change from home, where good and evil were a bit more subjective and harder to pin down at times.

"What would you like to be called?" Alfred switched back to 'butler mode', as the disposal business seemed to be settled for the moment.

"Just call me, Xander, all my friends do, even the ones trying to kill me," He said cheerfully and much too Bond-like in Alfred's opinion.

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Batman watched Alfred and Xander plot the Joker's death on a hidden monitor, with no visible sign of anger or concern. Emotions were for displaying when you could use them to shape other people's opinions, not for private use, even if Bruce tended to disagree with him.

He'd saved people's lives that the world really could do without before and likely would again. The line he treaded was a thin one, but to deviate from his path risked making him more of a monster then the Joker could ever hope to be.

Still...

Batman quickly went over the files he had on Agent R, retired, of the British government and noted his license was still active. If Alfred decided to take unilateral action... he could legally do so, even on American soil. Best to avoid exposing Alfred's past life if it could be avoided, not only would it draw unneeded attention to Bruce, but it would cost him one of the few people even he couldn't do without, as Alfred would have to move to cover somewhere else if exposed, for his own protection.

The rapid tapping of keys filled the Bat-cave, as Batman funded grants for three doctors who were working on nerve regeneration and two more that were working on incorporating cybernetic systems into paraplegics to restore lost function. That done, he quickly pulled up a list of options from his 'better than dead' menu, debating on the choice between 'Phantom Zone Projector' and 'Chemically Induced Amnesia' in case it became necessary.

Wiping someone's mind was almost the same as killing them, but almost WAS within his path.

He also wrote a note, to remind himself to run a search for Dr. Evil sometime in the future, when he had a little more time to search for future problems.

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Xander stared out the window with more than a little awe, as J'onn (AKA The Martian Manhunter) watched with amusement. He could understand what Xander was feeling, it was hard not to when you're a telepath, but for him it was just business as usual. The space station was just a convenient place to monitor the Earth from. Of course they'd be at the opposite ends of the spectrum if they were in one of the forests on Earth. J'onn still found the sight of so much green and vibrant life to be awe inspiring himself.

"OK, enough with the star gazing, let's go grab Plastic Man and see if he'll sign on," Xander said with a grin, carrying his battle axe like it was a baseball bat.

J'onn shrugged. "Why Plastic Man in particular, I mean, I could see asking Vixen, as she is a world class model and probably has plans to go into film at some point, but why Plastic Man?"

"Because Plastic Man is also a semi-decent shape shifter and a bit of a ham, so he'd jump at the chance to get to play on the big screen and could handle several roles in the same movie without anyone being the wiser until they saw the credits. We'd also save a bit on special effects, as he can stretch his neck and make it look like his head's been chopped off."

"Good point. Can he act?"

"Doesn't matter, I have a great idea for enhancing everyone's acting abilities," Xander smirked.

"Really, how so," J'onn cocked a nonexistent eyebrow at him.

"Simple. You project a light telepathic-trance-thingy at them, so they can feel like it's real and not just an act. I had a girlfriend who wanted to be an actress and she said the hardest part of acting was suspending disbelief and getting into a role. With a little telepathic cue, anyone can act like a professional."

"Seems a bit... invasive."

"Not if it's strictly voluntary and the point of watching a movie is to get into the movie and pretend it's real. If it works, than making the movie could be even more fun than watching it."

J'onn was about to question him on basic human motivation when everything went to hell, almost literally.

"DEMON", Xander yelled, his eyes flickering amber as he swung with all his might at the yellow horned figure in front of him.

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Faith had realized how much she didn't know about the group she was depending on to back her up and keep the world safe, so she begun to ask question and she really wasn't liking the answers she was getting. It wasn't so much the fact that Xander was the one who came up with the plans or did just the right thing at the right time, it was the fact that they all held that role in turn and with Xander missing they were going to start misfiring like an engine soaked in saltwater overnight. The group had pulled off some amazing feats, but it was the group that had done it, not just the slayer alone and Buffy seemed to have missed that point.

"So, let me get this straight... X came up with the plan, Cord helped him pull it off, Wolfy figured out where to go, and all Buffy did was point and pull the trigger."

"I killed it. What more do you need to know? I mean, sure everyone pitched in, but I'm sure I could have got the job done without help, it just would have taken a lot longer and cost a lot of lives," Buffy explained. "Working together we just get everything done faster and better."

Faith rubbed her temples and even Wesley looked a bit pained. "Buff, last time it was done, cost an army and a slayer and that was when people lived really far apart so feedin' the giant smurf took a long time. Judge Dread woulda been at full power in about five minutes and unstoppable, just with the daily crowd from the mall feedin' him. Your contribution was something anyone coulda done, point and click, and then let the bad guy get away to try and destroy humanity again, because you still wanted to bone him."

"I'm sure I could have reached him if I'd just had a bit more time," Buffy complained.

Wesley was once again contemplating calling up another slayer by strangling a current one. "Miss Summers, as Angel himself has stated, he was gone. All you did was try and appeal to a demon's better nature while he was trying to kill every man, woman, and child on the planet."

"If Angel wasn't in there, then why does he remember what happened to Angelus during all that, but not where Angel was in the afterlife?"

"I don't have an answer for that, but all I can tell you is that we know where his soul wasn't and that was in Angelus. Willow did the spellwork to prove it."

"As fascinating as this conversation is, we really should get back to searching for a way to locate Xander," Giles sighed. It wasn't that he wasn't curious about the answers himself, but he'd long ago accepted the fact that Buffy was unable to see that there was a difference between the body and soul. She was one of the shallow, popularity obsessed teens that LA and in fact most of the more influential areas, tended to produce and while being 'called' may have enlightened her as to the existence of demons, it didn't change the fact that she still based a lot of her decisions on style rather than substance.

"Nothing here," Oz said, setting aside a stack of old leather bound books on tracking and travel rituals.

"I found one that should work," Willow said, excitedly. "All it needs is to have someone... that loves... or is that has loved... physical, so sex then."

"Here, draw this on the floor with chalk while I figure this out," Willow commanded, laying the book open on the table in front of her so Oz could see what she was looking at.

Wesley looked at the book over her shoulder. "I'm not going to be of much help with this, I'm afraid. My knowledge of demonic subtext is atrocious when dealing with the eastern breeds."

Giles leaned and sighed, "Same here, I never could grasp their differentiation between physical and emotional adverbs."

"It's ok, I can get most of it from the context. It means someone who's had sex with him," Willow said firmly.

Everyone turned towards Cordelia.

"I didn't," She stated flatly.

"Not even a little," Buffy asked hopefully, holding her thumb and forefinger up, a couple of centimeters apart.

The red haired hacker jumped in, before she could answer, "The spell to tell who it'd work for is easy." Willow rattled of a series of phrases in a liquid sounding language.

"The people who it applies to will glow," She finished.

Faith examined herself and sighed in relief when nothing happened, she so didn't want to get tangled up in this group's, apparently really complicated, social life.

"Guess it's a no go then," Oz said, as he finished the diagram on the floor.

"It just takes a..." Willow trailed off as Cordy began to glow and looked down and saw herself glowing as well.

Oz would have been upset, but he was too busy trying to figure out why he was lighting up the air around himself.

Cordy took in the fact that everyone but Wesley was lit up like Broadway quite calmly, for about five seconds. "Xander, you, you...YOU, MAN HO!"

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The demon Prince Entrigan threw himself backwards, as the axe creased his Kevlar tunic and ducked under the risky follow up swing at his head, that left his attacker unbalanced for a moment and gave him time to prepare his own attack.

Xander had regained his balance and choked up on his axe for close quarters fighting, while Entrigan had taken the spare second to gleefully call up two handfuls of Hellfire to roast his foe alive with.

J'onn was on his knees from the telepathic feedback of trying to calm the two from their incandescent fury and he was wondering if maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't have altered Xander's instincts the way he'd requested last night.

Entrigan pulled back his arm to fling hellfire on his foe, while Xander decided to rush in under his arms for a groin shot.

They were both to be disappointed however, as bands of red, green, and yellow energy suddenly slammed them into opposite sides of the corridor and pinned them in place.

"What in the Sam Hill is going on here," Green Lantern yelled, with Star Girl and Zatanna backing him up and helping pin the two fighters down.

Xander gestured towards Entrigan with the only thing he could move, his head, fortunately he'd had enough head injuries that he could should shake off the most recent blow with little trouble. "Demon," he announced calmly.

Everyone turned to the yellow horned figure, who returned the gesture and replied in the same tone, "Demon hunter, that is he. A matched pair, don't you see?"

"Do you mind, we were kinda in the middle of something here," the Sunnydale native replied, like the three had just interrupted the two having coffee, while he was wondering why this demon looked so familiar.

"With his statement, I do agree. Private business we have, him and me," The demon growled, annoyed at the interference.

"Damn, a rhyming demon? This is like a mercy killing," Xander muttered, as he began to recall the fact that Etrigan was part of the League, even if he was from a series that Xander didn't follow, not liking the idea of a demon hero.

"Stand down, the both of you," the green lantern commanded, as the bands of energy holding the two slowly faded away.

"Why for the eyes, did you swing? My brow ridge protects, from most weapons' stings," Entrigan asked curiously, dissipating the fire he had summoned.

"If you follow the same plane as the nose, you can usually get under the ridge and slice open the eyes," Xander said, figuring the demon for a tooth and claw type who didn't use many bladed weapons and happy to talk shop, since he'd recalled that Etrigan wasn't a threat.

"Why for the stomach did you swing first, surely gouging out my eyes would have hurt worse?"

"Always go for the larger target first. You have a better chance of hitting and if you had to hold your guts in with one hand, then it'd give me the upper hand, no pun intended. The stomach is always the first area to attack on an unknown demon type, then the arms and the eyes, next the back of the knees and then the neck. It's nice to kill things on one blow, but you can't always rely on that, so best to cripple, then kill, then dismember, and if you have time, finish it off with a nice cremation," Xander laid his axe back on his shoulder while explaining his strategy.

"What was this about," GL demanded.

"He's not that bright, is he," Xander asked.

Entrigan laughed, "Will alone is all the rings heed. His brain apparently he does not need."

Xander snickered as he helped J'onn to his feet. "You, ok?"

"I thing I sprained something trying to calm you two," the Martian muttered, rubbing his temples.

"Trying your will against us was foolish, for in the end it is our passions that rule us."

"So, playing the hero gig, how's that working for you," Xander asked, ignoring the three leaguers who were demanding answers.

"Annoying and frustrating by the turn, when really all I want is to return to my hell and enjoy the burn," Etrigan's clenched fists were outlined in flame for a moment.

"Ahhh, so it's not by choice?"

"Cursed I am, never to be free, until Morgan Le'Fay has been ended, you see?"

"That's a pain. I'm pretty sure her end is scheduled for sometime within the next five years thought," Xander said thoughtfully.

"How can you claim to know Fate's book, did one of the Endless offer a look?"

"That's... not far wrong, come to think of it. Peaking at Fate's book is just about right, but by being here I alter things." Xander scratched his head.

"To alter fate and stump destiny, you would have to be a soul that was truly free. To foresee you'd have to come, from someplace closer to Hell and Heaven, blended in one."

"Closer to Hell than Heaven, sounds about right, though we do have a few champions of the light, so maybe. I'm one of the guardians of the gate to Hell, if you want to make my life sound cool or the guy who brings the donuts to the meetings of the gatekeepers if you don't." Xander snickered, his life really did sound better than it actually was, when you put it that way.

The black ex-marine turned green lantern fell silent, as J'onn nodded at his questioning glance. Zatanna's eyes grew wide as she caught the gist of things, while Star Girl just wandered off, figuring the fighting was done and she had homework to do.

"Infernal realms I wish to conquer, being stuck on this world isn't worth the bother," Etrigan snorted. "Glad will I be, when my hell again I see. The fighters here aren't much sport, not enough blood is shed in this line of work."

"I hear ya. Batsy already told me I can't go around lopping off heads. Kinda limits my options. I did call dibs on killing any demons and undead we run across, rare though they are around here."

Etrigan sighed morosely, "My armies are getting fat and lazy, memories of battle fast gone hazy."

"Ahhh. So, what you need is someplace to invade and cause some decent slaughter. Say, someplace with strong fighters who enjoy death and destruction," Xander replied, with a downright evil grin as an idea occurred to him.

"A place in this universe, filled with such sin? Sounds like a place for some fun with my kin," Entrigan grinned like a shark.

"Oh, yeah. I think it'd be just up your alley. The fighters there are on a par with vampires in the lower ranks, but much better armed and the upper ranks can give kryptonians a run for their money."

"Turning a planet into a charnel house of slaughter, are you sure your conscious it will not bother," the demon asked, curious about the other's motivation.

"Nah. That group is like a boil on this universe's ass. All they do is cause death and destruction to others, so I think it's only fair to arrange a little for them as well. Plus, as a bonus, there is always the chance you'll wipe each other out, making the universe that much safer," Xander explained, horrifying the leaguers around him at his callous disregard for what amounted to mass genocide of two races.

Entrigan laughed long and loudly, enjoying talking with a kindred soul, even if they were on different sides. Placing a hand on Xander's shoulder he flared his flame, just enough to warm without burning him.

Xander rubbed his shoulder, thinking it felt like he'd just gotten a bit sunburned. "What was that about?"

"I marked you with Belial's flame as a warning to my kin, that turning you into a demon would bring them into a battle they could not win. On the side of the angels you tread with a demon's glee, but turned to my side you'd be competition I do not need."

The Sunnydaler rolled his eyes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. The planet I was talking about is called Apokolips and is ruled by a big grey guy named Darkseid, and when dealing with him it is best to go for the eyes first. His main weapon is an eye blast called an Omega Beam and he usually knocks Superman around with it. They should have some files on him and his people, so you can prepare for a large scale battle and don't be afraid to leave the world as a burned out cinder when you're done. In fact, if you don't mind, I'd suggest salting the ground before you leave."

Entrigan smiled wistfully. "A vacation I would love to take, but Merlin's Curse I can not break. All my actions in this realm require, either heroic bent or direction towards making Morgan expire."

Xander nodded. Compared to dealing with trickily worded prophecies and cryptic advice, this was rather easy to deal with. "By taking couple of months off and invading another world, a world very, very far from here, Morgan will assume that you have broken the curse, since she no doubt knows what it is by now. By taking the time off and appearing to be free of the curse she'll dismiss you as a threat. After all, would an uncursed demon seek to fulfill a duty imposed on him by another? When you do return she may even seek to ally with you, thinking that you would join her to spite Merlin's goal since he cursed you and that provides the perfect opportunity to slip a knife in her back and free yourself. Betrayal and the death of the person that's kept you trapped here, what demon could ask for more than that?"

The demon's grin split his head in two, a fact that he cheerfully ignored, before it slowly faded and a serious frown adorned his fanged visage. "I hope in this universe you plan not to tarry, for you plot like one of the fae though I'll certainly not call you a fairy, but I must admit it's making me more than a little wary."

Xander shrugged. "I'm stuck here until either the people from home, or someone from here, figures out how to send me back. I don't have any complicated plots in the works, just having a little fun now that I have some time off and I have to admit this is even better than what I had planned for the summer. It's probably best just to consider me a guy on vacation, who missed his connecting flight."

The demon prince felt a strange chill at the hunter's words, but couldn't figure out why.

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Giles sighed and cleaned his glasses, while everyone waited for Cordelia's rant to run down.

"I can't believe you all slept with him, and you," she snarled at Oz. "He had sex with your girlfriend so what, you decide the best thing to do is nail him?"

Oz just raised an eyebrow and said, "Sorry, the weekly Scooby orgy got out of hand. I blame the booze."

Cordelia fell into her seat and stared around her in open mouthed shock, before replying in a sad voice, "You guys were doing social things together and you didn't invite me?"

The repeated thumping of Giles head on the counter almost covered Wesley clearing his throat to get everyone's attention.

"I believe Miss Rosenberg simply got the translation wrong. The spell is showing an emotional connection, not a physical one. Apparently Mr. Harris cares a great deal for all of you."

Faith smiled as the warm glow around her seemed to settle inside her a little. "Damn, no love for the new watcher I guess."

Buffy smiled happily. She'd thought the glow had signified what had happened when Xander had gone all animally and had been on top of her, but knowing he cared for her, even after everything that had happened, did mean a lot to her.

Willow quickly spoke up, "Hey, I'm sure Xander'll love you too, he just doesn't know you yet. So, no hard feelings ok?"

Wesley decided to imitate Giles' normal response to the teens and took off his reading glasses and began cleaning them, unable to come up with any reasonable reply.

**AN: I think this chapter went quite well. If you think Xander is OOC, remember he's in a comic book world, so in some ways it's not quite real to him. Add in the fact that DC brings people back to life quite a bit and you'll see why Xander's so free with his actions. Buffy isn't OOC, I'm basing her behavior on canon. She actually was quite bitchy around about the Zeppo episode. I'm doing my best to make her believable without demonizing her. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Chain of Command **

Xander yawned, as the Green Lantern read him the riot act. 'Man, this guy is a bigger control freak than Buffy at her worst. Still better than Snyder though.'

"And another thing, Members of the League do their best to prevent wars, not start them!"

"So," Xander asked, calmly, enjoying pushing GL's buttons far too much.

"SO?! Do you have any idea what kind of sanctions can be levied against you, as a Member of the League, for promoting genocide?" The veins over John's temples throbbed vividly, making Xander wonder if he'd ever heard of decaf.

"And again, I should care why?" The Sunnydaler knew he really shouldn't be trying to see how far he could push him, but this guy's tone just rubbed him the wrong way.

Etrigan smirked, his normal expression, and watched with amusement as a member of one of the galaxy's foremost police force seemed on the verge of having a coronary. This was the most fun he'd had since the black plague swept through Europe.

"I can have you assigned to rescuing kittens for the next decade," GL yelled, trying to impress upon the rookie how serious the consequences of his actions could be. Even if he didn't believe Etrigan would slaughter a planet, joking about genocide was still an indicator that he needed to be taken to task, while he could still be reached.

"Won't," Xander smirked.

"As one of the founders I have the right and responsibility to ensure that everyone in the league is of high moral character. So, yes I can easily have you assigned to duties that I feel would help you learn the error of your ways!"

"Not gonna do it," he drawled out.

"You'll do what I order you to do," John Stewart yelled, trying to see if military style discipline would reach the kid.

"Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture," Xander said in his best George Bush Sr. voice, which wasn't very good and wasn't a reference anyone local would know anyway.

The Green Lantern actually turned purple, eclipsing his normally dark skin tone, as he closed his eyes and clenched his fists, trying to control his temper. He didn't know who the new guy was, and with the number of heroes joining that was really no surprise, but if couldn't get him to face reality and see that there were consequences to his actions, people could get hurt in the future and he didn't want to see the kid go through that kind of pain.

Xander tapped J'onn on the shoulder and whispered in his ear, "Take my place. I need to talk to demon guy and Zatanna."

The Martian's head was still throbbing from the psychic backlash of trying to calm Xander and Etrigan, so anything he could do to reduce the noise level was extremely welcome. Shifting into a copy of Xander, he quickly stepped into his place while Xander moved behind the other two leaguers and drew their attention.

John took a deep breath and centered himself before opening his eyes and examining the rookie again. Apparently something he'd said had made a difference, because the kid looked like he was pained about what he'd said. It was a good place to start. Placing a hand on the kid's shoulder, John relaxed a bit and began to speak, "I know what it's like to be mad at the world and want to make those that spread pain and misery pay, by spreading it right back to them, but if we fall to their level then all we do is continue the cycle. The world isn't fair and I'd be the last one to try and claim it is, but we can make it fair. Working together we can make our little corner of the galaxy fair and just..."

J'onn listened intently to John. He'd never heard this level of passion from him before, it was intriguing how his mind worked and he had to admit it was a compelling speech; he'd have to find a way to slip it into their first movie.

Xander held up his axe. "I keep losing and breaking weapons. You would not believe the bad luck I have with these things, but this is my favorite axe and I was wondering if you knew of a way to use mojo to prevent it."

Zatanna stared at him shocked. "You're ignoring Green Lantern to talk about your axe? He is one of the founders of the league. He wasn't lying about that and as a Green Lantern he is one of the best people to help you learn how to fit in with the league. Sure, he's a little gruff, but he is a caring soul with a firm moral stance that can really help you find your way as a superhero."

Xander blinked, wondering what she was talking about. "I'm not a superhero."

"Your fight with Etrigan, brief though it was, showed superhuman abilities."

"Nope, just maxed out human ones and the side effect makes me eat pigs," Xander explained.

"It makes you eat like a pig?"

"I wish! No, it makes me eat live animals. My resistance to injury may be pretty good and even I'll admit I heal really quick, but it's all human traits pushed past their limits. Using it can cause me physical damage that has to be healed, so no cape for this guy."

"Even just as a human you have a place in the league. Batman is 'just' human and look at what he's accomplished."

"I'm not a hero, I'm a killer," Xander said seriously, having come to terms with the reality of his situation, thanks in part to the number of things that had been done to his mind recently, including the Hyena's dispassionate view on anything that didn't impact the pack's survival and the Soldier's stark realism about life and battle.

"Just because you've killed doesn't mean you can't be a hero," Zatanna said seriously, thinking of a disreputable friend or two, thought they probably wouldn't admit to the label of hero either.

The demon hunter shook his head. "Heroes are bright and shining examples of what humanity aspires to be. I am an animal; I kill to protect the pack. I will kill and never think twice about it, because I know that sometimes it's needed. You are in a war and for every murderous villain you let live; you doom dozens of civilians to death, sometimes in slow and painful manners. I'm not saying your way is wrong, but I am saying my way isn't either. You use your humanity to better mankind; I use my animal nature to protect its existence."

Etrigan smirked. It was rare that he'd meet a human with his head on straight.

Zatanna was at a loss for words. What could she say to that?

"My opponents have been mostly demons so far and the few human ones have offed themselves without me having to lend a hand, but demons are sentient beings, most of them anyway, and killing them is really not all that different morally than killing humans. Well, except for vampires. Undead of any form are just spirits animating corpses and should be put down, but that's another matter. I don't kill everything supernatural, for instance, there are a few species of demon that aren't evil and deserve a chance. I haven't met them, but I've read about them."

"That's a... interesting viewpoint. How did you end up in the league if your views are the opposite of our goals?"

"I'm not in the league, well except physically. I'm just here to do some recruiting, but enough about that, let's get back to the axe. I'm going to be using it to kill tons of demons and probably the occasional human, in a vain attempt to keep humans on top of the food chain. Do you know of any spells that would help with what I do and would you mind casting them?"

Zatanna shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. She really hated to be put on the spot like this, but if she helped him she'd be an accessory, morally, to what he did with that axe and she really wasn't in agreement with his moral stance, even if she couldn't see a way to argue with it at the moment.

The demon prince nodded. "I know of what you seek, but it has limitations of which we will speak. No blood of mine can it shed, but other demons will keep it fed. Red of blade, but not from rust, a blade that only you can trust. Never will you lose or break it, but neither can you ever forsake it. From now until the end of time, sharing strength, soul, and mind."

"That sounds like it costs a staggering amount of magic to cast. Why would you help a demon hunter kill your people," the league mage questioned, stunned at what Etrigan had offered.

Etrigan ignored her question, intent on Xander's response.

Xander only knew about rune weapons from D&D and while this sounded similar, the differences were obvious. There were a couple of downsides, like the fact that it couldn't kill Etrigan, but he wasn't likely to need to kill him, so that was unimportant. It'd be an extension of himself that he'd never be able to get rid of, even if he retired, but then demon hunters don't retire, they just die, so scratch that off the list too. Sounded like he would be the only one who could wield it, but that was a good thing, as it was probably the perfect weapon to kill him, being part of him. Best to make sure he was reading things right.

"So it'd be soul bound to me and unable to harm you, as you are the binder, but good for killing everything else but me, of course as the boundie and the only one who could wield it properly. Can't be lost, stolen, damaged, or destroyed, but I can't set it aside and retire either. I'm guessing it'll be sharing head space with me and urge me to seek out and slay demons, right," Xander summed up.

"Quick you are to see both sides, plusses and minuses that demons hide. Unbreakable, except to you, break it and your life is through, but if it's your weapon you choose to spike, all I can say is Retributive Strike!"

"Ohhh," Xander grinned. "Sounds like a great deal, what's the cost?"

"The cost is the pain of the making and then the lives you'll be taking."

"It's not going to devour souls, is it?"

Etrigan shrugged. "If you'd like some you could try it, but not unless it's a normal part of your diet. Is there some unspeakable horror, involved in the story of how you were born?"

Xander scratched his chin. "No more than usual on the Hellmouth."

"Then consuming souls is not its power, unless you have the urge for souls to devour."

Xander was about to respond when someone tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around to find one really pissed off Green Lantern and a Martian who had dropped his form and was hastily scribbling down notes.

"Yes, can I help you?"

The Green Lantern just ground his teeth together, before deciding he was too angry to deal with Xander rationally and stomped off.

"OK, bye bye nice lady," Xander said in a childlike voice.

Etrigan snickered, while Zatanna just stared at him like he was insane.

J'onn broke the silence while handing Xander a notepad, "You have to read this. GL's speech is pure gold."

The demon hunter read through it and began to grin. "Wow. Ok, I'm impressed. That guy's a paladin if there ever was one. Have Conner get this speech from Ramirez while training him and let's crank up the religious tones by having the only holy ground be one's blessed by religions that don't encourage the shedding of blood by their followers. It'll shift the fight scenes from Catholic churches to Buddhist shrines, but it should also make people conscious of how unholy it is for religious leaders to encourage killing in the name of god."

"You encourage wars and now you're encouraging peaceful religious beliefs," Zatanna questioned, wondering what was going on.

Xander nodded. "I encourage the destruction of evil and peaceful co-existence of people with different religious beliefs. Too many senseless wars have been started by religious leaders with god complexes. I want to sneak into popular culture the idea that shedding other people's blood in the name of your god is not holy. You contain evil, I destroy it if I can, that's the difference between us."

"But genocide..." Zatanna mumbled before moving on to actual events. "And you haven't even apologized to Etrigan for trying to gut him!" She really didn't see how a walking contradiction like Xander could exist.

The demon hunter turned to Etrigan and bowed slightly, "I humbly apologize for not gutting you, but we are on the same side at the moment and I will always consider you to be a significant threat that needs to be put down by whatever means necessary."

Etrigan's cheeks turned a deeper shade of yellow and he almost looked bashful for a second. "I don't know what I've done to earn such mistrust, but it's enough to make me blush."

"You are a demon lord of no small renown, I'd be a fool to trust you or underestimate your power or what level of treachery you could reach."

"Enough of the flattery that you speak, let's get back to the weapon you want to protect the meek," The demon announced, looking quite pleased with himself.

Zatanna just stared at them, speechless, as the trio walked off.

"The spell we shall use belonged to my half-human brother, never did I think I'd cast it for another, but the weapon he made was of quite some caliber..."

The League mage just stared, wondering if perhaps she was the one who needed some time off.

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"Down in front," Wesley called out, causing Faith to hit the deck, as the blue demon in front of her developed a bad case of exploding head.

"Watch it! You almost got me with that thing," Faith muttered wiping blue gunk off her pants. "That's why I wear leather, it's easier to get demon gunk off if and black means that unless the blood glows, we got no stains," she continued cheerfully.

"I believe Gr'a'nor have glow-in-the-dark blood, actually. It just takes a couple of minutes exposure to air before it becomes active," the young watcher said mildly, reloading the shotgun he was carrying.

"How come that thing isn't making with the loud boom noises," Buffy asked, walking beside Faith.

"Because… I cast a silence spell on it."

"You're a witch," Faith asked, surprised again at something Wesley had said or done this night.

"No, but all watchers learn how to cast silence on a small area of their choosing and the smaller the area the better it works, so… instant silencer."

"Part of watchers training is spellcasting," Buffy questioned, curious about what Wesley knew.

"Yes, but this spell was taught to me by my dorm mate. Apparently the bird I was with was a bit loud, so he taught me to cast it. It lasts at least six hours, so you rarely have to cast it twice," Wesley took a slug from the flask he was carrying.

"Bird? You had a loud pet," Faith asked.

"It's British slang for girl," he explained before blowing the head off a vampire that wasn't even looking in their direction, as it cut through the graveyard.

"That sounds kinda sexist. Why don't they have a slang term for a guy in Britland," Buffy snorted.

"They do. We're called blokes."

"OK, that's kinda of the weird. Girls get a nickname of an animal and men get a meaningless word," Buffy shrugged.

"Well... if it ain't bloke, don't fix it," Faith suggested with a snicker.

Wesley chuckled. "That one's going in my watcher's diary, but I'm claiming I said it!"

"Hey, why do you get all the funny lines," Faith demanded.

"Because I'm going to be the one paying for your new pants," he replied, cheerfully.

"Why..." Faith looked down at her glowing pants, "Dammit! I liked these!"

"So, I'll get you two pairs," he shrugged.

"Why are you so..." Faith trailed off.

"Unstuffy," Buffy suggested with a shrug.

"That would be the alcohol," Wesley grinned.

"You're drinking while on the job," the blond slayer said flatly.

"Yes, I am drinking heavily," Wesley confirmed and took another hit off his flask, just as a figure sprang out of the bushes at him.

The two slayers spun around to help him, but he simply flicked his right thumb and breathed out, causing a massive fireball to hit the figure, who then rolled around on the ground screaming, trying to put himself out.

"Hmmm, a mugger. I didn't think any sane humans would be out at night in this town," he commented mildly.

"Now that had to be some kind of super vampire battle spell," Buffy exclaimed as she nudged the panting figure on the ground with her foot.

"Nope, that was a pipe lighting spell and some Everclear," Wesley said proudly.

The lightly singed figure climbed to his feet after grabbing a briefcase from the ground. "I work in the mayor's office and I need your help!"

"You had Everclear and you didn't share," Faith shouted, offended.

"You didn't ask," Wesley shrugged off the implied criticism.

"You, wait one," Buffy commanded the guy with the briefcase. "And you, why are you drinking?"

"Because after hearing how close the world has come to going to Hell, I decided I was taking things way too seriously. You either have the gods on your side or we are all really, seriously, buggered. Either way I might as well relax and enjoy myself a bit."

"I...I...We need to get back to the library. Giles will know what to do." Buffy stormed off as Wesley just shrugged and followed with the other two in tow, both of which begged for a hit off his flask.

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Zatanna stared in horror, as the demon prince completed his spell. She didn't know why anyone would go through this much pain for a weapon.

The bare metal walls of the empty ten by ten room were coated with frost from the backlash of the spell Etrigan had invoked. They'd chosen this room because of its durability and lack of anything breakable or indeed anything at all, but even the titanium alloy that made up the walls, floor, and ceiling were showing signs of rust, something that should have been impossible, due to the corruptive nature of a demon lord's power.

Xander leaned against the wall as Etrigan ripped the axe out of guts and flipped it around to extinguish the flames on the other side by embedding it in his chest once more. He waved off J'onn as he tried to help him. Sure he felt like hell. Hell, he felt like someone had just embedded a flaming axe in his torso, twice, which was rather fitting because he had just had that happen to him. It was only the blood bound word of a demon prince and his own willing compliance with the insane requirements for the spell that kept J'onn and Zatanna from interfering.

Xander felt quite a bit better than he expected to, as the demon handed him his axe. Sure he felt a trifle cold and he could see some goth chick in the corner giving him the eye and blushing, but really he expected to feel much worse. Reaching into the gaping hole, that really shouldn't be, in his chest, he smeared his hands with blood and coated it from the base of the handle to the tip of each blade and tried to remember what he was suppose to do. It had something to do with the naming of something. He idly scratched the side of his head with his axe, which now looked like something an extra in 'Conan: The Barbarian' would wield, while his life's blood began to pool at his feet.

Clutching the axe to his chest he suddenly remembered what he was suppose to do and held the axe out with a shaking hand and said in an absentminded way, "I name thee Bob!"

Etrigan howled with laughter as Xander fell over, unconscious. He'd almost stop for a moment and then he'd mutter' Bob' and start laughing again.

Xander came to, with two very worried leaguers examining him. He giggled, a bit light headed from the lack of blood and slightly ticklish from Zatanna's gentle probbings. "A little lower and to the left," he voiced, causing the mage to jump back and blush at where her hands had wandered.

J'onn helped him to his feet, simply asking, "Was it worth it?" Not in a sarcastic tone, as most others would in the same situation, but rather curiously, as humans still surprised him at times.

"I'll have to say yes, though I don't think I'll be doing anything remotely similar in the near future, without a lethal level of alcohol being involved anyway..." he trailed off, scratching as his chest, which no longer had a hole big enough to stuff his school books in.

"What's with him," he asked, pointing at the demon that was pounding the floor and laughing like a loon.

J'onn, who was helping keep him on his rather shaky feet, replied, "I believe he found the name of your axe to be rather humorous."

Xander grinned, showing all his canines, and held his axe up. "Yes, because after all, what demon would fear an axe named Bob? It's not like it can actually hurt them."

Etrigan stopped laughing like a switch had been thrown. "Sending you home can not wait, Zatanna where is lurking Dr. Fate?"

"I believe he's in his quarters meditating," she said, receiving a nod from the demon who vanished in a burst of foul smelling smoke that Xander found strangely familiar and disturbingly arousing.

"Think it was something I said," Xander said, snickering to himself.

"I don't think he realized you had named it while delirious. The little speech you just gave made it sound like it was... Ohhhh," J'ohh trailed off and began to laugh.

"Thanks to some fast thinking and typical demon paranoia, I now have a very anxious demon mage working on getting me home. If you can't dazzle then with brilliance..."

"...baffle them with bullshit," J'onn finished, morphing into a copy of Xander once more.

"Good thing he isn't a telepath," Zatanna mumbled, finally getting the joke and a little worried about her teammate being unhealthily influenced, by the blood covered figure.

"I could go for some lunch," Xander announced. "I'm feeling a bit hollow for some reason."

The Martian Manhunter laughed and Zatanna felt a cold chill run down her spine, her worries seeming more justified by the second, as the two nearly identical figures chuckled.

Outside in the hall, where the others couldn't see him, Etrigan snickered. He appreciated a good joke, besides he really did want to get that kid home and out of his hair. His mind went in too many directions to feel safe around.

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"You broke the new watcher already," Cordy exclaimed, as she watched Wesley polish his shotgun and share a drink with some guy with no eyebrows.

"Not exactly," Buffy mumbled.

"Yes, exactly," Faith confirmed. "But it was more of a group effort. Apparently hearing about how close the world has come to total fuckin' oblivion, because B likes to have a cold one every now and again has left him feeling a bit less brit-like."

"Nah," Wesley corrected her. "Well... not entirely. It's also the fact that the elder slayer with the bad bleach job is completely dismissive of the help of anyone who isn't the slayer. She seems to think she's better than anyone else."

"What?!"

The younger watcher started laughing, "I'm just winding you up. You do have a bit of an attitude problem, but it's more passive aggressive for the most part. I think the fact that you prefer vamps to humans calls for some heavy medication, but I completely understand you not wanting Xander around. From the sound of things, if you left him and your stiff sweetie with a number two pencil in a room alone together, you'd have to vacuum the room later and I know how American teens hate doing chores. I almost forgot your brilliant demonstration of how Xander was useless in battle because he couldn't out arm wrestle you, when you grabbed him by surprise, as he never expected a friend whom he trusted would assault him in that way. I'm sure Miss Chase here is a champion arm wrestler and Miss Rosenberg has a wiry strength that just completely outclasses the slayer spirit, Bravo!"

Buffy winced. That really hadn't been one of her better moments.

"Well enough about that, who's up for Vegas, my treat?"

Giles just blinked and stood stunned as Cordelia and Faith followed Wesley out the door, calling back that they'd be back Monday morning.


	4. Chapter 4

**No deposit, No return**

Xander and Martian Manhunter entered the station's cafeteria, discussing various options for special effects, with Zatanna following just behind them, because she wanted to keep an eye on the axe wielding lunatic and was a bit concerned about him 'recruiting'.

"My god, are you ok?" Plastic Man stared at the blood soaked figure with the sliced open shirt.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I blame Zatanna for all the blood tho'," Xander confided to the stretchy cat-burglar turned crime fighter.

J'onn, still in his Xander guise, turned towards Zatanna and intoned loudly, "His blood is on your hands!"

"What? I didn't do it!" Zatanna looked down and noticed that she had gotten a lot of his blood on her hands, when she was checking to see if he was still wounded.

"I remember it like it was yesterday," Xander said, staring off into nothing.

"It was actually about five minutes ago," J'onn pointed out.

Xander elbowed him. "Yeah, but my memory sucks. Work with me here! I came to, lying on the ground, covered in blood with her hands…" Xander sniffled like he was about to cry.

J'onn quickly shifted into the form of a 60's police officer holding an anatomically correct doll in his right hand. "It's ok, son. Now, show me on the doll where she touched you."

"AARRGGHHH!!" Zatanna stormed off.

Plastic Man started snickering as he got the joke. "So you're ok then?"

"Peachy with a side of keen and hankerin' for some pie," the demon slayer announced before turning and almost bumping into Galatea who'd been attracted to the commotion.

Xander just stared.

"Hey, my eyes are up here," she snapped, a bit annoyed.

"Yes and mine are down here. I think we just discovered yet another one of your super powers."

"What," she asked, confused.

"Your breasts seem to have magnetically attracted my eyes. I… I can't look away," Xander said, as seriously as he could fake it at the moment.

Galatea chuckled, not used to someone being so forward with her. "And what's yours, super-lechery?"

"I have an eighteen inch tongue and the ability to breathe through my ears," the teen stated, not looking away from the objects of his fascination.

"Hah, like I haven't heard that before." She rolled her eyes at him.

"Want me to prove it," Xander replied, still not looking away from her chest, as his tongue shot out to lick his forehead, to everyone's complete amazement, with the noticeable exception of Plastic Man, who was mumbling about no one being that impressed when he did it.

"You can breathe through your ears too," Galatea asked, shocked at someone actually having a set of super powers based on a bad pickup line.

"Nope, but I can hold my breath for about fifteen minutes and I am amazed I can lick my forehead. Personally I blame Fate. Well, not so much blame as praise."

"Fate gave you an eighteen inch tongue and the ability to hold your breath for a quarter of an hour," Plastic Man questioned.

"My swim coach and some demonic steroids is credited with the breath holding, but Dr. Fate's cancellation of my protection amulet is what's left me with the tongue," Xander explained. "I knew having someone cast a spell on me was a bad idea, but this is one side effect I don't mind."

"Can you please, look at my eyes when you're talking to me," Galatea asked, finding this whole conversation to be the most fun she'd had all week.

"Well, I could, but I suspect that I probably wouldn't be able to look at your breasts at the same time, which, you must admit, is a major downside for me and plus, I have the sneaking suspicion that you can do super puppy-dog eyes and bend me to your will. So my choices are really between beholding the most beautiful sight in the whole of creation or becoming your helpless slave. Hmmm… decisions, decisions."

"You know I can break you in half with my pinky right?"

"I'm used to it." Xander grinned, unrepentantly.

"You have balls, you know that?"

"Right now, I am sooo resisting a comment that would get me killed."

Galatea giggled, enjoying flirting with someone who wasn't afraid of her, before begging, "Please, please, please?"

Xander whined like a kicked puppy, before bringing his eyes up to meet hers and froze. "Damn, and I thought your breasts were impressive."

Galatea blushed, as he stared into her eyes with an intensity she wasn't used to. Neither Cadmus nor the JL had prepared her for this situation.

J'onn winced, as a large, blue, horned figure cut between the two.

"Excuse me, coming through," Blue Devil aka Daniel Cassidy said, as he headed for the buffet.

"DEMON", Xander yelled, his eyes flickering amber as he swung his axe with all his might at the blue, horned figure in front of him.

J'onn was prepared this time however and smacked Xander down, with an arm shaped like a giant rolled up newspaper, morphing into himself and then back into a Xander clone. "Bad doggy!"

"Owww," Xander whined from the floor, the shock of being slammed to the ground snapping him out of his axe happy phase. "Let me guess, another hero who just happens to be a demon?"

"Actually, I'm a stuntman and special effects artist, mystically bonded to a costume I designed," the Blue Devil explained, as Xander climbed to his feet and shook his hand.

"Xander L. Harris, dimensionally displaced demon hunter and general confection retriever," Xander offered.

"Dimensionally misplaced," Galatea asked, curious.

"Yep. My normal home is the mouth of hell, but someone cast a spell and boom, I'm suddenly in this universe, annoying people until I either get recalled or sent home. Etrigan is talking to Dr. Fate about finding a way to send me home, which is complicated by me being from closer to the core of realities, I'd guess. I could get recalled by the people at home, but their spellcasting abilities leave a lot to be desired, so I figure I'll be here for quite some time," he finished cheerfully.

"And you generally yell out 'demon' and attempt to kill anyone with horns," Daniel asked, a bit amused. "And why are you covered in blood?"

Xander shrugged. "I see a demon, I attack a demon. It's a survival skill that is much in demand when you're hometown is built on the Hellmouth. Of course, running away screaming is what the smarter and much longer lived people do. I am covered in blood because I had a run in with Etrigan, who apparently took offense at my traditional hometown greeting and carved out my stomach and liver with my own axe."

J'onn snickered. "Well to be fair, you did ask him to."

Xander grinned and held up his axe, still a bit crusty with his own blood. "I needed a spell cast, so I'd stop losing my axe and playing ginsu with my internal organs was part of the price. Remember never to ask him for help finding your car keys."

There was a loud growl from Xander's stomach.

"Of course the new stomach has never had any food in it before," he turned to Galatea. "Would you like to help me break it in?"

"Are you asking me on a date," she teased. "Because I rarely date blood soaked figures. A girl simply has to have her standards."

Xander stood his axe on the ground in front of him and crossed his arms on it, leaning forward intently. "I am fully prepared to get down on my hands and knees and beg, if that's what it takes. Of course I'll be ogling your legs while I'm down there, so I win either way."

Galatea laughed, finding she was liking this strange guy who treated her like a normal girl, but before she could respond, Superman showed up.

"Excuse me, but we have a mission and I wanted you to come with. We have a green lantern, behaving a bit oddly and you're insight is desperately needed," Superman fudged, wanting to get Xander away from his naïve sorta-cousin and figuring his unique knowledge could actually be useful.

Xander spotted John Stewart eating nearby and trying to ignore him. He couldn't let that go by, now could he? "I knew it. Those rings are from a crackerjack box, aren't they? Hmm. I wonder how many boxes I'd have to eat to join the Green Lantern Corps?"

John ground his teeth together and despite the fact that he was being baited couldn't help but respond. "You will never be part of the Corps! It takes dedication and self sacrifice. To be called as a member, requires a standard of morals and honor that I can't see you possessing!"

Xander wasn't given time to respond to that, as Superman drug him off quickly, not wanting to get into an argument with John.

"J'onn see about getting BD involved too and Galatea I'll have to take a raincheccckk," Xander's voice dopplered off, as Superman made tracks.

Wonder Woman quickly followed, deciding not to bring along Aquaman, who had built two large rounded hills out of his mashed potatoes that looked disturbingly like breasts and was mumbling, "This means something."

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"So," Buffy attempted. "We are down a slayer, a watcher, and a Scoob for the weekend?"

"Looks like," Oz commented, as Willow went over their diagram a third time, making sure it was perfect.

"I don't believe there is anything major planned over the next two days. For some reason, most of the really large demonic problems occur either on specific dates or during a weeknight. I think the increase in nighttime activity during the weekend, by humans, changes the normal demonic focus from frenzy to feeding," Giles opinioned.

"Frenzy," Oz questioned.

The watcher blushed a bit and examined the book in his hand more than necessary to cover up his embarrassment. "I needed a word starting with f and that was the best fit I could find for the moment, but rest assured my watcher's diary will have something far more pithy in it."

"Pithy," Willow grinned.

"Yes indeed and I shall describe myself as being a bit taller and with a full head of hair," Giles said, attempting to lighten the mood.

The girls giggled and even Oz seemed to snicker for a second.

Satisfied with having cheered the three remaining teens up a bit, he examined Willow and Oz's carefully chalked diagram. "Very nice work. As the earlier spell showed, we have everything we need to cast and I can see no errors in your casting circle, so proceed when you feel ready."

Willow smiled and stepped into the circle.

Buffy and Oz stepped back to give the red haired hacker turned witch some room.

Willow held the book in front of her, not trusting her memory for something this important and began speaking in the strangely liquid sounding tongue that she had used earlier. She started out at a whisper and slowly raised her volume till she was practically shouting by the end of the spell, unseen winds whipping her hair around her, bringing an aura of power that surrounded her.

A wavering image of a blood soaked Xander, carry an axe, flickered briefly before being eclipsed by a yellow horned visage who peered at them avidly. "Three I see, rash and without care, who else would so dare, to spy on a demon and expect him to be unaware?"

Giles quickly stepped forward, his days as a rebellious demon summoning youth actually coming in handy for once. "As I speak, so shall you be bound. A question for a question, answers true to be found."

"A simple enough binding, but not as strong as you think you'll be finding," the demon grinned widely; baiting petitioners was almost as much fun as teasing the Bat.

"Can we skip the rhyming, please? I always end up with orange as the last word and the whole class laughing at me," Buffy stepped out from behind Giles, complaining.

"As you are one of my kin, I can attest… ahem Sure. Takes some of the fun out of it, but I was planning on leaving one of you trying to rhyme something with silver. Orange is overdone."

Willow spoke up, "We're looking for a friend."

Etrigan considered the truth of that statement before answering in kind, "I've found a few. It helps if you reek bloody vengeance on their foes. I've made several friends that way."

The corner of Oz's mouth twitched up, but he manfully forced it back down.

"We are looking for a particular friend," the red headed witch explained.

"Trust me, all my friends are particular, but then, normal is overrated."

Buffy stamped her foot. "We want to find Xander!"

"And I want to lose him," the demon quickly added, covering his surprise. "But the order mage I'm working with says we can't send him home without knowing where to send him and with the stars lined up properly. I know where to send him now, but the stars won't be in alignment for at least a week maybe more."

"He's there," Willow blurted out, eyes wide.

"Yes, someone ripped his dimensional alignment loose, casting him out of your reality and further out into the fringe."

"Is he ok? Can we see him," babbled the witch.

The demon considered that for a moment. "I'll never consider him ok, but he was going to lunch last time I checked and this spell is about at the limits of its effects."

"You're working on sending him back here," Giles asked, making sure he knew what was going on.

"He's… annoying and I'd prefer he wasn't wandering around the universe without his keepers, to keep the damage to a minimum," the demon complained as the spell faded out.

"Well," Giles said, but couldn't figure quite what to say after that.

"So, Xander's in a hell dimension and he's annoyed the locals enough that they hired a mage to send him home," Buffy questioned.

"Looks like," Oz nodded.

"He appears to be safe at least," Willow said, hopefully.


	5. Chapter 5

**Brass isn't just polished copper**

Hal Jordan, Bay City's very own Green Lantern, stood in the middle of the park with a case full of softly glowing green rings on a stand. Adorned in the typical green lantern uniform, black and green apparently never goes out of style in this universe, complete with a tiny black mask that really shouldn't hide his identity, but somehow does, he pitched his wares.

Hal's grin was a sight to behold as he called out, "Come one, come all! Get your power rings here! The greatest little gadget that money can buy!"

Yes, it was a bit of an insane grin, but that didn't stop the crowd that had formed around him, buying Green Lantern rings as 1.00 a pop and flying off as soon as they put them on.

"The most coveted piece of jewelry in the whole universe can now be yours, that's right, YOURS, for just one thin dollar!"

Rings and dollars changed hands so quickly that it seemed the case should have been emptied in seconds, but for every ring removed another appeared in its place, as he continued his pitch, passing a ring to a rather odd man, wearing a Hawaiian shirt that had seen better days, and carrying a double bladed battle axe that gleamed like newly minted silver.

Hal passed the ring to him without thought. The guy with the shiny axe had a prankish air to him that spoke more about an elaborate joke being planned than anything harmful and if anyone appreciated how the rings could be used for pranks it was Hal. As far as he was concerned, if you couldn't have fun while doing your job, than you were probably in the wrong line of work.

"These are the very same rings that are worn by the Green Lantern Corps, the guardians of the galaxy, far and wide!"

He could just see Superman's reflection in the window across the way and decided to play with him a bit, "With these rings you can be faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings…"

**-A little while ago-**

"So why the invisible jet," Xander asked, curious.

"Well, teleporting down would be instantly detected and Batman doesn't have anything in the local area we can use. Flying in under our own power is also easily detected, but my jet has magically enhanced stealth capabilities, so we can get close to GL without setting off any of his ring's sensors. If he has… gone a little bit off track, us walking up to him will be seen as much less of a threat than simply appearing, which could spark a confrontation," Wonder Woman explained.

"Good plan. Since he doesn't know me, I can scout ahead, blend in with the crowd and signal you if he appears to have lost it," Xander offered.

"That sounds like a good idea. Just whisper if you think something's wrong and I'll hear it," Superman smiled, relieved that Xander appeared to be, as Batman had put it, unsettlingly helpful as he was when he arrived, despite his strange need to tease John.

"I don't think a man coated in dried blood carrying a blood encrusted battleaxe would blend in anywhere but Gotham," Batman pointed out.

"Touché. Hey Diana, does this jet come with a washroom?"

"Sure, it's all the way back and on the left," She replied.

"What's on the right?"

"A twenty three bedroom mansion with an Olympic size swimming pool."

"Really," Xander asked, wondering if she was making a joke.

"Really. Hephaestus made this jet as a birthday gift and I mentioned I wanted some place to stretch out and nap If needed, so he decided to add what he referred to as an 'Economy' upgrade," Wonder Woman explained.

"Neat! I wonder if I can get him to make me a tent for camping," Xander muttered as he headed to the back of the jet.

**-Back to the Present-**

"What do you think you're doing," Superman asked, disapproval clear in his tone.

"Selling power rings, Superman. At a price every man can afford," Hal replied with a manic grin.

"But, why," Wonder Woman asked, wondering what was wandering willy-nilly through the green lantern's mind.

Hal held up his hand, his face reflecting the green glow from his ring. "Wonder Woman, there is something you should get off your chest… Having superpowers is great!"

"But with great power…" Batman began, unknowingly quoting another hero and skirting copyright laws, with a growl.

"Stow the high school angst, batman," Hal butted in. "Nobody's buying it. But they are buying power rings and why? Because when you slip one of these babies on your finger, the world really is at your fingertips."

A flash of red and a burst of wind interrupted whatever Batman's response would have been.

"Sorry I'm late. What's up," The newly arrived Flash questioned.

"The Green Lantern is selling power rings for a dollar," Batman growled, visibly upset with the flagrant irresponsibility the young GL was showing.

"Cool. I'll take one," Flash said excited at the chance to actually fly rather then walk.

"You have a dollar," Hal asked with a grin.

"Not on me," the Flash said, after patting his suit's nonexistent pockets.

"Then step aside, Flash and let a paying customer through," said a huge talking ape wearing a pink dress, with matching accessories and some nice pearls, as it shoved the scarlet speedster to the side.

"Here you go ma'am, enjoy," Hal said brightly, exchanging money for ring in a second.

"You bet I will," the gorilla with the excellent fashion sense, although the red wig was rather questionable with the pink dress (it did highlight its eyes however), as it grasped the ring tightly.

"I'm not so sure this is a good idea," Superman said thoughtfully, as he looked at the talking gorilla attempt to fit the tiny ring on its enormous finger.

"Well I'm sure that doesn't make it a bad one," Hal said firmly.

Xander watched the entire show in disbelief. He kept waiting for someone to point out that a gorilla wearing a dress was most likely Grodd, but so far nothing, even though it was growling and cursing under its breath as it struggled to put on the ring. He waved to try and get someone's attention, but they were all too involved in their argument.

"Face facts Justice League, despite all the wonderful things was can do, we can't be everywhere all the time to do them. Why heck, just yesterday I was battling with the Misery Men on Rigel IV, and Gorilla Grodd was right here in Coast City, stealing all the gold in fort Ping."

Xander considered taking an axe to Grodd, but he was sure it wouldn't be worth the hassle he'd get from PETA much less the rest of the Justice League.

"Do you actually think that giving normal citizens power rings can thwart criminals," Wonder Woman asked, her royal roots showing in her opinion.

Green Lantern leaned forward and gave them a dopey grin before putting a finger to his temple and saying, "Pretty smart, huh?" Firmly convincing them all that he needed psychiatric care.

Xander sighed and reached over and pulled off the wig and hat, Gorilla Grodd was wearing. He was pleasantly surprised the big ape didn't notice, still fixated on the ring. Waving the wig around like a flag he waited for on the League members to notice. 'I swear, it's no wonder no one ever figures out Superman's secret identity, they're friggin' blind!'

"Excuse me…" Hal said, quickly flying over to the cross-dressing primate.

"Damn ring, I can't fit it on my fuckin' finger," Grodd growled.

"Let me help you with that," the Green Lantern offered, before forming a huge boxing mitt out of green energy and slamming a right jab into Grodd's stomach.

Xander picked up the extra ring off the ground, while Hal entertained himself with beating Grodd senseless. "Cool, free ring."

"I'm sorry, I should have mentioned that these rings only fit on fingers and not dirty fuckin' paws like yours… Gorilla Grodd," the young GL exclaimed, as he pulled off the oversized glasses and pearls Grodd was wearing, stunning the League members, who hadn't seen through his cunning disguise even though the hat and wig had already been removed by Xander.

"Shit," Grodd cursed, upset at his capture, when near-ultimate-power had seemed to be in his grasp.

Good work, Green Lantern," Superman praised him. "We should have known that Grodd couldn't resist buying a power ring, especially at your price."

"Should have known who he was when he walked up wearing a dress," Xander snickered quietly to himself.

"Thanks, Superman," GL said proudly. "I'll meet you all later at JL HQ, once I'm done buying back all the rings I sold," Hal lied, knowing that everyone who had put on a ring had been informed by the ring's AI that it was just a temporary ring and would run out of juice with just a couple of hours of use, as this was part of a sting operation. It just wouldn't do to upset the people in his city by offering them false promises of permanent power and besides, he trusted them enough to play along and they could have a great tag race.

'All work and no play would turn Hal into John and we just can't have that, now can we,' he thought to himself while heading off to organize the festivities.

"OK, we'll see you then," Wonder Woman called out, as she easily slid into the pilot's seat of her invisible (to everyone but her) jet while everyone else carefully felt out their way on board, trying to avoid the usual shin injuries that afflicted everyone, including superman due to its magical nature, and failing miserably as always.

"Where's Aquaman," the Flash asked, rubbing his shin as he took his seat. Seeing Wonder Woman bite her lip he simply grinned. "You forgot him again, didn't you?"

"Yeah, let's just go with that," the amazon said, really not wanting to get into a conversation about the subject.

"I have to hand it to Green Lantern, the rest of us are bound by our physical abilities, but the bearer of a power ring is only bound by his imagination. In some ways his power is greater than all of ours combined," Superman said thoughtfully, considering the restraint Hal had been showing, even while seeming to have been out of control.

"Hold on a minute, Superman. Did you forget whose finger that ring is on," Flash said, thinking of the pranks him and Hal and pulled on the station when they got bored.

The four Leaguers laughed, remembering the trouble Hal got up to, when he wasn't busy saving lives.

Batman grinned and in a moment of rare humor, pointed out, "Can you imagine if Wonder Woman had a ring? It'd just be another piece of jewelry to her."

The four shared a laugh as they tried to imagine anything Wonder Woman needed a power ring to do.

"And you Superman, or you Flash! Why, you guys would just use it to get an edge in one of those races you're always running," Batman continued, the leagues laughing right along with him.

"Or me, imagine me being able to do everything I dream of," Batman finished.

The laughter cut off like a switch had been thrown, as Batman got a thoughtful look on his face and the others suddenly gained a look somewhere between thoughtful and stark terror.

Xander chuckled to himself as he played with the two rings he had. Sure they were limited, but just wait until he got a chance to tease John!

**AN: A bit shorter then I had planned, but I wanted to get this out while I started on the next section.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Violated**

Xander looked around and through the invisible jet nervously, not because it looked like they were floating unsupported at thirty-thousand feet, they did, but because he was feeling a bit uneasy. Something was majorly off and he didn't know what it was. Wonder Woman looked normal. Superman looked normal. The Flash looked normal. Batman looked… like he was wearing Adam West's costume!

Xander examined himself for any changes, but he looked fine. 'Holy mixed up costumes, Batman! OK, Batman has been replaced by the friendlier Super Friends version and the others probably have been too. I can't really tell because the costumes are the same for both sets. What the hell is going on here?'

The air shivered as a wave of shimmering light swept across the sky, leaving a subtle change in its wake, unnoticed or commented upon by anyone, with the exception of the extra dimensional donut fetcher. 'OK, things are normal again, Bats has a steel rod up his ass, if his black costume is any indication, and everyone seems more serious than they were a second ago, but what caused that?'

Xander clutched his axe like a security blanket, feeling completely at sea in what was practically his second home growing up. What had felt like a vacation, moments ago, had sprouted strange angles in his mind and an alien feel.

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"Do you know how much longer they're going to be gone," Galatea asked J'onn, who was still wearing Xander's form and writing revisions to a script in his hand.

"About five minutes less than five minutes ago, which was the last time you asked. It's a shame you don't have super patience to go with all the other miscellaneous super powers you Kryptonian types have," J'onn deadpanned, not looking up from his work.

"Argothian and technically, I'm not really that either," Galatea muttered.

"Superman got here first, so you all get to be called Kryptonians. It's similar to how all Cubans in Californian are called Mexicans and I better not hear any angst over your origins. There is nothing wrong with being a clone, it occurs in nature enough to be downright boring."

"What!? Really," the blond haired, blue eyed girl asked curiously, wondering about the number of holes in her education that Cadmus hadn't filled in, either by accident or design.

"Yes, we call them twins and even if the method of twinning was a bit unusual, you yourself are not. There are people in the league that have cornered the market on angst and unusual origins and frankly your story is pretty dull. The Question became who he is, because he has no idea who he is, so he questions everything. Now **there** is an unusual origin. For all we know he could be the love child of Adolf Hitler and Eva Brawn. You know exactly who and what you are, so you don't get to angst," he grinned.

"But I was created and conditioned to be nothing more than a weapon," Galatea complained, feeling oddly cheated by his offhand dismissal of her past.

"So are tens of thousands of children each year in war torn countries. If you look through all of human history you'll find that, that is all too common."

"I'm not exactly a perfect match for Kara, which I should be if I was a perfect clone," Galatea said, trying to justify a bit of self pity.

"No, you are not, although according to Xander your breasts come close and he's convinced your eyes are."

"My eyes are what," she asked, curiously.

"Perfect," J'onn replied, wondering if Green Arrow would mind playing the lead in 'Men in Tights'.

"I don't recall him saying anything like that to you, before Clark dragged him off."

"He didn't say it, but he was thinking it," the Martian said, considering the merits of blackmail in casting for roles.

"Really?" Galatea perked up, before tilting her head to the side and regarding the Xan-clone. "Do you read everyone's minds all the time?"

"No, but me and the Xan-man have a rather strong connection, which he's given me permission to listen in on, as long as I don't start annoying him with it by answering questions before he asks them. He had a friend who did that and it threw him off his game."

"Ohhh, so… how long now," Galatea asked.

J'onn sighed in annoyance and then grinned evilly, taking her form. "He'll be back soon and I think I'll take him off somewhere for lunch. We do have a connection I'd like to explore a bit and I'm sure I can figure out some way to… occupy his time."

Galatea's eyes practically bugged out. "I thought you were a guy, isn't that a bit like cross-dressing," she asked nervously, not liking the competition J'onn could actually become if he was serious and she didn't know enough about him… err her, to tell how serious the Martian was.

"Don't be silly," J'onn laughed in Galatea's sexy contralto, "I'm not human and my people are shape shifters. Gender is more like a pair of shoes than any real permanent feature."

Etrigan walked into the league's teleporter room and leaned against the wall, watching the two argue, as J'onn teased Galatea, not that she was experienced enough to recognize that, with amusement. 'Even when he is away, the chaos he causes does not decay.'

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"I wonder what Cordy and them are up to," Buffy said, as she and Willow walked through a graveyard, trolling for vamps.

"Faith is seducing some biker by now, Wesley is playing poker in some smoky back room, and Cordy is finagling an invite to some swanky party," Willow said firmly.

"So you think you got it all figured out, huh," Buffy grinned.

"Yep, the skank, the blank, and the swank."

Buffy snickered. "That's a bit catty, if not entirely incorrect, but the blank?"

The red haired witch shrugged. "I couldn't think of anything else that rhymed and until recently he was kinda overly stuffy."

"Well, we sure cured that in a hurry," Buffy said, spinning around to stake a vamp that had been sneaking up behind them.

"Yeah and like most men, he probably thinks playing poker in a back room is the height of being manly. I mean, he's either boring or a walking cliché. Why, what do you think he's doing?"

--

Faith disarmed the security guard with an economy of motion, as Wesley pointed his shotgun at the bank teller, his ski mask bulging oddly because he'd put it on over his glasses.

"Money. Bag. Now," He growled at the teller, leaning over the counter to snag her purse and fish out her driver's license. "If there is even one dye pack in the bag, I know who you are and where you live. I can wait a year or so to find you, by that time the cops will have forgotten your name, but I won't."

The blond paled and quickly rifled through the bag she was filling, tossing out bundles of cash, seemingly at random, before empting most of her drawer into it.

"Time," Faith called out, having glanced at her watch and seen they'd reached the two minute mark they'd set for the operation.

Wes tossed a bag of money to the dark haired slayer and grabbed another one, leaving a hand free to cover the people in the bank as Faith moved out and he covered her.

A squeal of tires marked the arrival of Cordy in a white car, who kicked open the passenger door for Wes to jump in, while Faith dove in the open back window.

With a quick stop at a carwash to wash off the water soluble white paint and remove the car's hard top, they were on their way and untraceable before the police even arrived at the bank.

--

"Yeah, they're probably not having all that much fun. I'm sure it can't beat hanging out with a friend and dusting vamps. We get the adrenaline and the laughs, without dealing with a lot of cigarette smoke and clanging slot machines."

Willow grinned. "That's the spirit and now that we've finished your nightly round, let's go to the Bronze."

"And deal with cigarette smoke and a clanging band. I'm in!"

A fledgling, that had just crawled his way out of his grave and was still dripping grave dirt everywhere, paused at their laughter and in a singularly intelligent move, decided that cheerful young girls walking in a cemetery were probably bad news. Quickly vacating the scene, he promised himself that he'd only feed on the old and ugly.

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The sound of the transporter activating broke up the impromptu wrestling match (J'onn was winning) and deposited four of the world's greatest heroes and one obviously disturbed visitor on the materialization platform.

Etrigan spoke up before anyone else had a chance to, "One of the downsides of this dimension, is the warping of time's fixture. From the look on your face, I see that you noticed Chronos changing his pace."

Xander nodded dumbly. "I don't suppose you can explain that in words of less than three syllables, cause I'm not quite sure what I saw."

The yellow horned demon sighed and scratched a horn idly while he thought of the best way to explain it.

"Something happened," Superman asked, wondering what he could have missed, considering his senses were much sharper then Xander's.

"I didn't notice anything," Batman growled suspiciously, eyes darting around the room.

"Are you ok," one of the two duplicate Galateas asked.

Xander seemed to come out of his stunned state at the sight of two identical blonde aliens staring at him with concern. "Tea?"

"I'm Galatea," the one on the left replied.

"No, I am," the one on the right argued.

And just like that, the wrestling match was restarted.

The four original leaguers just stared at the clone and her doppelganger, as they wrestled on the floor of the teleporter chamber.

Etrigan cleared his throat and when that failed to attract Xander's attention he slapped him on the shoulder.

"Demon," Xander yelled and embedded his axe in Etrigan's skull.

Everyone froze.

"Heheh, sorry about that," Xander apologized, "but I was in my happy place and then you kinda brutally ripped me out of it and might I add I'm still kinda edgy."

The demon prince giggled a bit as Xander removed the axe, revealing unblemished skin.

"Tickled," he growled, daring anyone to argue with him.

"Anyway, what did you want to tell me," Xander asked, as if he hadn't just attempted to cleave Etrigan's skull in twain.

"A simple explanation for the dimensional shifting is the task that I am set upon, very well then I have just one word to say... Retcon," Etrigan ended with a growl.

Xander whimpered, "I've been reconned. I so need a long, hot shower right now."

While the leaguers were wondering what was going on, Xander walked straight up to one of the Galateas. "I need a hug."

Galatea carefully wrapped her arms around him, a bit nervous at both how fragile he was compared to her and the unfamiliar emotions involved. She had to admit that the arms he wrapped around her felt anything but weak though. In fact, she felt rather warm and a little weak herself. It was a nice feeling she decided, as she melted into his embrace with a happy sigh that he mirrored.

"How'd you figure out that I wasn't her," J'onn asked, still in a copy of Galatea's form.

Xander shrugged not even attempting to move from Galatea's embrace. "You did a decent impression, but the eyes were all wrong."

"What?!" J'onn turned to the other leaguers, "I did the eyes right, right?"

Batman and Superman nodded, seeing nothing out of place.

"Looks fine to me," Flash chimed in.

Etrigan snorted, "souls shine through their mortal shell, if you have eyes that can see through the veil."

"I still need that shower. Want to scrub my back," Xander asked, his spirits restored.

Flash sped off to check the monitor room, while Wonder Woman slipped out of the room covering a smirk. Neither had any desire to see Clark in 'Big Brother' mode.

Superman nudged Batman and they interrupted Galatea's reply, dragging the two protesting teens off in opposite directions.

"I have some strength control exercises that you'll need to learn, for dealing with close physical contact with the more fragile races," Clark offered, figuring that the exercises would slow things down between the two and were likely to be needed anyway. Lord knows, he was still trying to master some of the more difficult ones.

"Alfred will have dinner ready at seven sharp and I have no desire to upset him, considering he's making it especially for you," the caped crusader stated, not loosening his grip on Xander till they were both out of sight of Galatea and Superman.

Martian Manhunter cursed in his native language to the empty room for a couple of minutes before sighing. "Damn it, there goes about twenty pranks I had planned."

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Xander quit protesting and rubbed his arm a bit from where Batman had gripped it. "Fine, let's go. I still need a shower anyway. Got any liquid nitrogen?"

"Why would you need liquid nitrogen?"

"Cause I don't think cold water is going to cut it at the moment," Xander complained.

Batman actually snorted, shocking Xander speechless.

"I'm still human," Batman pointed out, "and I've been in your situation before."

"With Galatea," Xander asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

"Wonder Woman," he riposted.

"Touché," the demon hunter muttered, conceding the point.

The two came upon John walking between Vixen and Hawk Girl and Xander let out an evil chuckled, while slipping the faux Green Lantern ring onto his finger.

Batman watched curiously, but made no move to interfere, as he'd learned enough about his house guest's behavior patterns from J'onn that he felt he could reasonably predict his actions wouldn't be hostile, but he made a mental note to question Xander about where he'd gotten the ring from.

Carefully concentrating, Xander sent a thin green thread to John's ring and two rather large green arms, complete with hands, seemed to grow from the GL's ring and goosed both the girls, causing them to jump and look at the emerald construct that seemed to come from John's ring.

"One of us alone isn't enough for you," Vixen asked, eyes narrowed into a feminine glare that promised pain in his future.

"Just because I was interested in you before, doesn't mean I'm willing to share," Shayera seconded.

John stuttered and protested, having no clue what had happened and putting up a really feeble defense.

"Yeah," Xander chimed in as they caught up with the three, his ring stowed away in his pocket, "it's not like they're from cultures where more than one wife is common."

The two girls fell silent as they considered their respective cultures.

Throwing back another comment before they passed out of sight, Xander said, "or like the lifestyle you three share needs some extra help to make sure any children are protected and cared for in case something should happen to one of their parents."

Once they were safely out of earshot, Batman asked, "so why did you do that? I was under the impression you didn't like him."

"I like happy ending and it's mostly his attitude I dislike. Besides, I like the two girls and they deserve some happiness."

"And you think the three of them have a better shot at it then just two of them? Relationships of that type usually require more work not less."

"Ahh, but the outside forces that usually break up those relationships will likely just bind those three closer together."

"Interesting theory."

"Of course he won't know whether he's in heaven or hell for the first couple of weeks."

"I'll see about giving him light duty," Batman said, curious as to whether the life of a superhero would be easier with more emotional support then a traditional relationship would supply.


	7. Chapter 7

**The Joke's On You**

Alfred quickly shuffled Xander off to get cleaned up and dressed in clothes that weren't stained with human blood. He'd trained Master Bruce well enough for him to know that his uniform was not welcome at the table, so he did not need to 'help' him.

Bruce was getting dressed in some semi-formal clothes, suitable for dinner with friends while the Bat was complaining that something didn't sound right. Bruce pushed aside the Bat's paranoia; he'd have to come up with something a bit more convincing if he expected Bruce to give up one of Alfred's special dinners.

Once Xander was dressed, Alfred quietly slipped a capsule into his pocket. "This is a variation of Smilex Gas, that will effect the Joker and Harley specifically, given what I know of their habits. The range is a little over three feet in each direction from where it's broken, so you can target the Joker alone without affecting anyone else."

"I have silenced Master Bruce's police scanner for the moment. So if the Joker and Harley commit a crime in Gotham, which word on the streets says they will, I'll be able to give you a small lead time until it's reported by the local news media or one of his other sources. I have one of the Bat Cycles out front under a tarp. The activation phrase is Jokers Wild," Alfred explained, giving Xander a quick rundown on what he'd planned out while Xander was gone.

"One problem," Xander interrupted. "I don't know how to drive a motorcycle, much less a Bat Cycle."

"It drives itself, in fact with the number of modifications it has on it the only person who could control it better than it controls itself is the Flash, thanks to his superior reflexes."

"You give me the high sign when its time, I step outside and let the cycle do the rest, then I break the capsule within three feet of the Joker – preferably when Harley is at least a dozen feet away. Seems simple enough."

"Simple in theory, yes, but remember you'll be facing the Joker and that's never a simple matter."

Xander thought of all the things he'd faced before and compared them to the green haired lunatic. "He's slower and weaker than anything I've faced before with the added bonus that nothing he does is likely to be all that surprising. I mean, after facing things that sneeze quick drying concrete or can make you face your greatest fears – he comes off as a bit predictable."

"Nevertheless, do be careful and remember to inject yourself with the antidote if you get gassed. The cycle will have enough antidote to treat a dozen people, simply ask and the cycle will provide it."

"Excellent, I have only one question."

"Yes?"

"How do we keep Bruce from finding out?"

"What makes you think he doesn't know already? I ran him through all the double O training courses until he could do them blindfolded, then I developed more complex and challenging ones based on them. Likely, Master Bruce already knows what we are planning and is simply biding his time to counter whatever we have planned. Our only advantage is that he will have to react to our plan so we get the first move."

"Checkmate in one." Xander grinned.

"Exactly. Our plans are quite simple, unlike the highly complex ones he's used to countering, no clues written in riddles or things to plan for, one swing and the job is done."

"So with all those advantages … say 50/50?"

"More like 70/30 and not in our favor unfortunately."

Xander shrugged. "I've faced worse odds and a 1 in 3 chance to keep Babs from getting paralyzed from the waist down and Robin from being tortured and made into the thing he hates... Well I'll just have to do it again and again until it takes."

"An admirable sentiment. Now let's see about dinner."

* * *

"Hi, I'm John Clayton and I'll be your rookie for the day," the dark haired man said as he climbed into the back of the armored van, wearing his new gray and black, Rapid Response uniform.

"Hi rookie," the three people in back and the driver in front called out.

"Did you guys practice that?" he asked suspiciously.

"No, why do you ask?" came the chorus.

"Seriously, that's really spooky."

"Thanks," the four said.

"I've just been transferred over to you guys. The chief said I'd fit in better here than in the department," he explained.

"Ah, then I guess we can let up on screwing with you. Just remember if this works out, we have a 45 page book for you to memorize," a young woman with pink hair said.

"Oh, unit regs?"

"No, the unit regs are about ten pages long and half that is the coloring section," grinned the man who'd been helping the pink haired woman disarm a digital arming device. "I'm James Lupin, I specialize in anything that goes boom and I carry a freeze ray." He slapped the futuristic pistol at his hip. "Call me James."

"Are you serious?"

"No, and don't ask if he's Remus' cousin either. That joke went stale long ago," the red haired woman leaning on his shoulder answered. "Jessica Weasley, sniper and I wear the Chameleon armor. Call me Jesse."

The pink haired woman spoke up quickly, "I don't want to hear any Tonks jokes either, in fact its best to avoid any mention of Harry Potter at all. I'm Susan Wentworth, no specialty as of yet, more of a Jill-of-all-trades. Call me Susie Q."

The bald headed man wearing a long black leather trench in the front seat who sat sideways sipping coffee spoke up, "I am Jeffrey Shacklebolt, team leader and group telepath. Not only are Harry Potter jokes not tolerated, I'd appreciate it if you refrained from any Matrix jokes. Call me Nemo, not I repeat, not, Morpheus."

"How about Neo then?" John asked.

Amidst the laughter Nemo groaned out, "Well, it looks like you'll fit in here quite well."

"So how much of that introduction was true and how much jokes?" he asked curiously.

"It was all true," Nemo assured him.

John looked at him skeptically. "What am I thinking then?"

"About having sex with Susie," Nemo replied.

John laughed. "You had me going for a second there."

"Sorry, that was me," James said, raising his hand.

Jesse leaned forward and kissed James. "Good covering for me, hon."

Susie just rolled her eyes.

"What is our fraternization policy?" John asked curiously, "Not that I was thinking of having sex with Susie – although, now I am."

Nemo grinned. "You have to buy them dinner first and fast food doesn't count. It's on page four of the manual."

"Wow, who wrote your charter?"

"We did," Jesse said, "and if it weren't for the statute, saying team regs had to be at least 10 pages long, we wouldn't have added the coloring section."

John was honestly stunned. "How did you manage to get away with that?"

Nemo shrugged. "We have the most dangerous job on the force. The shrinks, who try and keep the police from mass suiciding, said that in their professional opinion you'd have to be insane to sign up for our job, so the best thing to do was find the most functionally insane people on the force and give them free range. When a city statute was added to allow independent police forces 'aka vigilantes' to claim the high tech or magical gear from super villains so they'd have a harder time liberating their gear, we quietly co-opted it. James has some freeze guns he snagged from the last time Mr. Freeze was in town, Jesse got a set of Chameleon Armor from our run in with some race of Mantis aliens and we don't even know if they were hostile."

James grinned. "Jesse hates bugs, so she ran into a grocery store the moment she saw them. We thought she'd snapped and ran away because of some phobia. So there we were, standing there staring at a pair of seven foot tall alien praying mantises in high tech armor, wondering what we were supposed to do, because our sniper had run off and they hadn't made any hostile moves yet. When she comes out of the store, yelling like she's the last of the Mohicans, wearing a backpack sprayer filled with insecticide and starts hosing them down, all the while laughing madly."

"About this time everyone is staring at her in shock, when the bugs start scratching themselves," Nemo continued. "The next thing you know, they're stripping down and running back to their ship."

Jesse shrugged while everyone laughed. "Turns out our insecticides are like poison ivy to them, one of them pulled the sprayer off me – grabbed its partner, ran back to their ship and left. I kept the armor as spoils of war."

Jesse winked at John and her RRT outfit rippled and changed into a Super Girl outfit, then into a set of medieval armor, before returning to an RRT outfit once more.

Nemo grinned. "We have an extra set, but you have to be a master at Tetris to make it work for you, since it's mentally activated and you have to build everything, piece by piece in your mind, in a matter of seconds."

"I'm not that good at Tetris, I always preferred first person shooters," John said.

Susie nodded. "Yeah, that's pretty much the case with the rest of us."

"As for myself," Nemo said, "I ran into a thief who wore a magical trenchcoat, that made impenetrable armor, because it was soaked in the river Lethe in Hades, but the side effect is that when worn, it made people forget you were there after a couple of seconds. The only exceptions being people who are off their rocker or empowered in some way."

"If it was impenetrable and made people forget you, how did you get it off him?" John asked.

"Right cross to the chin, since it doesn't cover the head at all and since I'm a telepath and he wasn't, it couldn't make me forget he was there. He'd rob a place, then wait for the effects to kick in and since anyone new on the scene would take their cues from the crowd, he got overlooked a lot, as you could imagine, and even when inspected he just had to get them listening while he told some long boring story and they'd wander off after a few seconds. Of course on me the effects are slightly more pronounced, because it works based on the senses of the wearer and my telepathic senses have turned it into a block wide, notice-me-not field, that works on the average Joe."

Nemo looked at John intently. "So, what's my name?"

"Jeffrey Shacklebolt," John replied, not getting what Nemo was trying to point out.

"So are you empowered or just insane?" Susie asked with a grin.

"Empowered," John stuttered out nervously.

"Tell us about it," Nemo ordered.

John winced "It's not the most useful empowerment, let me tell you that upfront. I was at Star Labs delivering some glowing rocks to them, when a scientist pulled me in, saying he detected a surge from the dimensional wall allowing a higher being to pass onto our plane and that he had exactly three minutes in which he could use the echo of its arrival to give me a weaker copy of its powers... He said it was all theoretical, but I would be serving humanity and getting powers for doing so. How could I say no?"

Susie laughed while the others just grinned. "I'll tell you about my enhancement when you finish, just so you know, mine wasn't exactly some great deal either."

John smiled at her, feeling a bit better. "Well we did the tests and I got a slight increase in my senses, strength, speed and healing, but just exercising a bit more would probably have the same effect and I also got …" he blushed and tried to figure out how to explain it so it didn't sound funny.

"Yes?" Susie leaned forward.

John sighed and licked his forehead before covering his mouth and nose and just sitting there.

Jesse was the first one to get it, when she saw the hair over his ears moving. "A sixteen inch tongue and the ability to breathe through your ears?!"

"Damn!" James exclaimed. "Can the Doc do it again? That's a power I'd love to have, come to think of it, I'd love Jesse to have that power!"

John relaxed when he saw that the group wasn't going to make fun of him for it. "Breathing through the ears isn't all that useful, especially if you're talking about oral sex. What's one of the things women love to do when you're down there?"

"Ah..." Nemo nodded. "Clamp their legs around your head, blocking your ears."

"Not to mention I have to wear ear plugs when I go swimming or wear a gas mask," he pointed out.

"Still you've got to be happy with the tongue," Jesse said.

"True," he admitted, "but it was kinda a letdown otherwise, I mean I was supposed to get this great set of powers and instead, I get a bad bar joke."

"At least you got something useful to go with the useless part of it." Susie sighed. "Let me tell you about my empowerment – I had latent metagenes that were discovered by the scientists at Star Labs, while checking for those white martians and like you, they offered me a chance to get some 'fabulous powers', but like you they turned out to be duds. The gene sequence told them it had something to do with healing. So I figured, Wolverine. Powers like that would be great. Unfortunately it was not to be, I ended up with pink hair and this," Susie said and cut off a lock of hair with a knife before handing it to John. "Eat it."

"What?!"

"Eat it, I'm not joking."

Nemo nodded. "She's serious, eat the hair."

John shrugged. "Well, wouldn't be the first weird thing my coworkers have talked me into eating," he said before eating the hair with a contemplative look on his face. "Not bad, tastes a little like cotton candy."

"Yep, cures headaches and hangovers... Some great power huh?!" Susie snorted.

"So is it only the hair on your head?" John asked.

"Well I left after they discovered no major physical changes, except that and its effects."

"So you don't know if your toenails cure cancer or if your pubic hair or fluids could cure third degree burns?" John asked.

Susie shrugged. "Never occurred to me to check."

"Now that's the kind of innovative thinking this team needs!" James proclaimed. "The next time I get wounded we'll have to check it out in the name of science!"

"Just as long as it's after the battle," Nemo reminded him. "You and Jesse flirt with our fraternization policy enough as it is."

"Hah! I knew it wasn't you had to buy them dinner first." John laughed.

Everyone looked at him and spoke in chorus again, "Yes it is, however there is also a rule about not having sex during battle... Unless you're in some complicated death trap you have no chance of escaping, then you can ignore the rules."

"How do you guys do that?!"

"Nemo is a group telepath, but first you have to be part of the group. The forty five page manual is all about in jokes and anniversaries and such. It's not some fantastic power, but it's very useful in battle," they chorused.

"Cool!"

* * *

Wesley woke up with his head pounding. He tried to sit up, but found he lacked the strength – it was like all his limbs were pinned down. His brief fear that the Mayor had tracked him down, knocked him out and paralyzed him, to torture for information, was proven incorrect when he found he could wiggle his fingers. The groans of the slowly waking girls, because of where his fingers were when he wiggled them, however made him wish his first guess was correct. Because he was fairly sure that, despite his century of experience, the Mayor would be far less creative with the tortures before he killed him than the girls would.

"Wes?" Faith's sleepy voice came from his left shoulder.

"Yes?" he said calmly, figuring he might as well relax before his impending doom.

"Can you stop moving your hand? Not that I mind a little early morning enthusiasm, but I need a little more sleep first or some coffee," Faith said sleepily.

"I would, but I can't seem to move."

"Coffee sounds nice," Cordy said, "but I need a hot shower and soap before any enthusiasm will be provided."

"Why can't I move?"

"Because you make an excellent pillow?" Cordy ventured.

"I think it's because we got you tied down," Faith voiced.

"And the reason I can't see?"

"Blindfold," the two chorused.

"I see, or rather I don't. Can I get a quick explanation?"

"Alcohol, Vegas, Bank Job, Marriage, Kinky Sex," Faith said, beginning to wake up.

"We work in a Bank?" Cordy asked, sounding a bit upset.

"For precisely seven minutes, you just drove the getaway car," Faith said as all three of them were suddenly shocked awake by her words.

"Getaway car?!" they chorused.

* * *

"They still haven't shown up?" Buffy asked.

"No, I'm afraid the three of them are still gone. I'd be more concerned, but I received a call from them last night sometime, saying they were having a wonderful time and were glad we weren't there."

"Glad we weren't there?"

"They were drunk and they all agreed that they were glad that we were guarding the Hellmouth. They said they wouldn't feel anywhere near as safe with any other group doing the job. Wesley even said I made him proud to be British, but with more hair and told me where he kept his Everclear stashed."

"Well that's good, I guess. I was a little worried that there were some hard feelings and you can get rid of the alcohol stash, so he can act normal when they get back."

"Consider it disposed of," Giles said firmly.

"Does that mean you've already poured it out or that you've hidden it somewhere that he can't find it?" Buffy asked suspiciously.

"Buffy, I said consider it taken care of. I think, considering I've been your watcher, lo these many years, I'd have earned at least a little of your trust," Giles said, sounding slightly offended.

"Sorry Giles, I didn't mean to make it sound like I didn't trust you. It's just, that stuff is really flammable and I worry," Buffy said apologetically.

"Then I'll take no offense," Giles said kindly, as he escorted Buffy out the door of his apartment. "Willow and Oz are heading out to LA today to check some leads. Why not join them as some added protection?"

"Ooh! And I hear they have shoe stores in LA," Buffy said brightly. "It's only a rumor, but I might want to check that out. You know, rather than searching for hidden caches of alcohol."

Giles blushed, knowing he'd been caught. "Umm, yes, I think that's a marvelous idea. Here's sixty for a pair of boots, low heel, steel shank, dark. You know, something a Slayer would find comfortable to use. So she wouldn't ruin any of her favorite footwear."

"Best Watcher Ever!" Buffy said proudly, hugging Giles before heading out the door.

"Yes, quite," Giles agreed, rather proud of his charge for seeing right through him.

Giles sighed as the door closed behind her. "Tie my casting power into how drunk I am, Ethan said. You're always tanked anyway, Robert said. That was true enough or I'd never have agreed with them..."

**AN: Thank godogma for his excellent typing skills, people!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Dinner and the Road Show**

The dinner was quite enjoyable, Alfred's cooking was fantastic, and the conversation was interesting, as Bruce was enjoying the opportunity to tell some of his more embarrassing Batman stories.

However, all three of them were aware of what was going on.

Alfred had an ear-bud in and was monitoring the police bands, his time in her majesty's service kept him calm, cool and collected, no matter the time or the situation.

Bruce was having a great time, he knew that the Bat could be called into action at any moment so he'd long ago learned to make the most of his time. Besides, Alfred and Xander's goal was a good one. He still had to stop them, as was his nature, but he didn't begrudge their intentions at all.

Xander was also enjoying himself, the food was the best he'd ever eaten, the stories were something comic book geeks would kill to hear, and his current mission was easier than playing bait for Buffy; one insane clown, armed with a host of tricks that Xander already knew from seeing them in the comics, no one involved was multiple times stronger and faster than he was, and he got to stop a truly evil killer before he could kill again.

Xander kept his axe with him, as he'd explained to Alfred that he always kept it with him, so it'd look more suspicious if he didn't carry it to dinner.

The call came in as they were letting dinner settle before desert. Alfred's police scanner picked up the police report that the Joker and Harlequin had been spotted at Gotham's Museum of Natural History with a gang of thugs, loading a number of priceless artifacts onto a semi.

"Time for desert. If you'd care to help me Master Bruce?" Alfred asked congenially, waving Bruce toward the kitchen.

As Bruce entered the kitchen he could see Alfred make some sort of sign in the reflection off the polished surface of the wood.

No doubt things were coming to a head, but he had a quick access route to the Bat Cave from the kitchen that would allow him to reach the Joker way ahead of Xander.

Bruce appreciated what they were trying to do. He'd be the last one to complain about someone taking extreme measures to protect family. He'd let them make the attempt and then the Bat would stop them and show them a better way. He'd learned better than to forbid anyone from doing anything after raising the Robins.

Bruce's hand reached for the hanging plant that triggered the quick trip entryway when he heard a familiar click behind him, and realized that he'd made a rather large error.

He'd missed the fact that Alfred was wearing his gray suit's pants. They looked quite a bit like any other pants worn with a gray suit, but these were part of a specific suit, a suit that Alfred had worn before he'd begun to work for the Wayne family. Bruce slowly turned and even the Bat fell silent as he took in Alfred's form of dress.

Alfred was wearing the entire suit, including the bowler hat, cane, and monocle.

Bruce swallowed slowly. The click of the cane on the floor had been a warning. "I seem to have missed something," he muttered quietly.

"Somehow I very much doubt that Master Bruce," Alfred replied dryly, feeling a surge of adrenalin from being in 'uniform' once more. Sure it wasn't as flashy as the heroes of the modern day, but it was his.

"I mean, this seems a bit much, it lacks subtlety."

"I am getting on in years, so I'm afraid I'd have to go all out to delay you, sir."

Bruce looked sad for a moment. "Time grinds us all down Alfred, that's why I have protégés, because I won't be here forever."

"You have protégés because they are called to the life. Not many people are called to my line of work, and of those that are well over half of them are called for the other side."

"I know the feeling. I suppose I have been quite lucky," Bruce admitted with a sigh. "So rather than make a mess in the kitchen, how long a delay are you banking on here?"

"I was hoping for five minutes," Alfred admitted.

"Three is a more accurate estimate," Bruce suggested.

The door of the kitchen opened much to their surprise.

"What was that code again?" Xander asked with a sigh.

"Jokers Wild," the two replied before Xander vanished out the door once more.

"Four?"

"I made strawberry cheesecake."

"Five it is, as long as I have your word that this is the extent of your delaying tactics."

"I kept my actions low in scope so they wouldn't interfere in your normal activities outside of this."

"Delays kill," Bruce agreed.

"One can only hope, sir."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "Very droll, Alfred."

"I do try, sir."

o0o0o

"Team Rocket on recon," Nemo ordered. "Find and relay positions before going to ground. Target of opportunity as always, non-lethal – small fries only, leave the big fish alone."

Nemo turned to the other two. "Susie Q and FNG, try not to get too close, but close cover is your aim – watch and report only unless attacked or to provide medical attention."

Nemo grinned. "I'll be walking in for a little sabotage, to slow them down in time for the Capes to appear. So keep your eyes open and do not shoot me in the ass, it was funny that one time, but only because it was unexpected."

Jesse and Susie giggled while James hid a smile.

"Headsets for backup communication, Susie will relay info from FNG. Until he connects the only way to communicate with him is by radio or by relay through Susie. Susie, explain everything we're doing to him when you have time and figure out a nickname for him." Nemo hopped out of the van without another word and vanished into the night.

Jesse and James grinned and followed.

Susie turned to John and explained, "Being in telepathic contact means never having to say … anything really. Everyone in the group is relaying everything they see and hear effortlessly. Since we don't use radios, or even talk out loud for the most part, we're harder to find than you'd expect."

John nodded. He could see the advantages in that.

"It also means we don't have to explain our normal chatter to anyone." Susie laughed.

"So what is our purpose?"

"We are here for distraction and delay purposes. We slow down the bad guys so the Capes have enough time to arrive. Jesse and James go by Team Rocket when they're paired for a mission. They relay everything they see from recon before finding a nice bird's eye view. Jesse uses the chameleon armor to blend in and take out the occasional thug with tranqs. James plays guard and spotter for her, since we see what he sees and his weapon is excellent for disabling attackers at close range or making walls of ice to provide cover from long range attacks."

"I've only been here for a couple of months myself, but I can cover any position but Nemo's. Nemo is the only one of us that regularly enters the target area by himself. He lets air out of tires and clips wires on devices, ensuring that the costume nuts are still here when their opposite number arrives to deal with them. Even with the coat he has to be sneaky because the major nuts can usually see him. It's only the henchmen he's safe from and only most of them. Jesse takes out any who seem suspicious."

"So, what do we do?"

"Depends on the mission. I can do a lot of things well, but don't have a specialty yet. For now I mostly sort through our thoughts and relay useful information to the police manning the area roadblocks. We're both going to move in close on this one to provide more eyes on the scene and medical attention if needed. This is a Joker situation, so we have a fair amount of antidote for his gas with us. It's expensive so we only use it if the Capes haven't taken care of the situation themselves. Most of the time the Capes have it covered so we can save our expensive antidote for when they don't. Batman also leaves us presents sometimes." Susie grinned.

"Presents?"

"Yeah, in addition to snagging the toys of the nuts, we collect anything the Capes drop. The difference is that with the Capes stuff we keep it in a box, so if we spot Superman or Batman or anyone like that, we can give it to them to return it. Lately Batman has taken to emptying the box himself and leaving us goodies inside."

"Like what?"

"A translated manual for Jessica's armor for one. We didn't know half of what it did before reading that. We also got some instructions on how to recharge the freeze ray James carries."

"Useful."

"Yeah, and things we couldn't get for ourselves."

"How does he know so much about you guys?"

"He could have the van bugged or access to police files, or have a greater telepath read our minds. It's possible he did all three and a bunch of stuff I wouldn't even know about."

"And that doesn't bug you?"

"If it was anyone but him, sure, but you have to understand that Gotham is under his protection and he goes to insane lengths to protect it."

"Like putting on a Bat outfit?"

Susie laughed. "That's nothing, wait until you see him in action, the things he does and the people he fights will really knock your socks off.

o0o0o

Xander held on for dear life as the bike took turns at speeds that would have thrown him off if he weren't strapped on. "I'm going to die, aren't I?"

"All biological lifeforms terminate at some point in time," the bat cycle agreed.

"I mean soon," Xander groaned.

"No fighting capability assessment on file. Unable to calculate survivability vs Joker and his associates."

"I actually meant from your driving."

"Unit BC 1R operating well within optional parameters. Searching for sarcastic quip response; response found – Black Canary to Green Arrow 'I'll tell you when we're dead, now shut up and hang on.'"

"Somehow I have a hard time picturing you talking to any of the Bat Clan like this," Xander said, too surprised to be scared for a moment.

"Units designated as, Bat Clan have psyche profiles denoting distrust of AI's. AI capabilities partially suppressed while in use by unit of Bat Clan, unless requested."

"And I don't?"

"Harris, Alexander – Xander, no Psyche Profile found. Full AI capabilities requested and enabled by command: Joker's Wild."

"Lucky me," Xander muttered just before the bike hit the afterburners and used a pair of pop out glide wings to clear a clogged intersection. "Aaaah!"

"Searching for appropriate disdainful reply, response found - Batgirl to Catwoman 'Psst, pussy!'"

o0o0o

"It seems like we should be doing something," John complained as they watched a string of thugs load crates onto the back of the semi.

"Nope, if we took down the Joker and his associates, which we probably could, the Joker would start plotting against the police. That would lead to the deaths of a great many officers and their families who can't protect themselves nearly as well as our hidden vigilante," Susie explained.

"So we trick the crazies into concentrating on the Capes, so they'll target them instead of us? I guess that works, but it doesn't really solve the problem," John complained.

"It depends actually, repeated fights with Capes have caused some villains to retire and some have even joined the Capes. It's only when dealing with people like the Joker that the system breaks down."

"Insane masked murderers should be treated differently than the nuts who just want to rob banks in tights," he sighed.

"Unfortunately that's not up to us to decide, we enforce laws not make them."

"Well... Damn," John cursed softly.

"Nemo told me that the thing to remember is …" Susie said solemnly lowering her voice.

"Yeah?" John asked as he leaned in close.

"We get first dibs on salvage, the best teammates we could hope for, and they let us blow shit up," she finished in a cheerful voice.

"Huh?" he blinked, surprised by the change in tone.

Susie laughed. "Don't take things too seriously, or it'll drive you nuts. We make a big difference on a local scale. The amount of civilian casualties in connection with super villain crimes has gone way down since our team was formed, but we aren't going to change the world. Put simply, we do good work and have fun doing it. What we do is important, but not earth shaking. Enjoy it while it lasts, because it's dangerous enough that you may not live to see tomorrow, and fun enough that they may eventually stop paying us to do it and start charging us instead."

John began to grin. "Well, since I won't be putting on spandex and going Punisher any time soon I guess that will have to do."

"Good, because I have it on good authority that wearing spandex is like a permanent wedgie and the normal Capes without kick ass powers have to go through tons of special training to do what they do."

"Permanent wedgie?" He cocked an eyebrow. "You wouldn't happen to have a spandex outfit buried in your closet would you?"

"Maybe." Susie blushed. "I might possibly have made a costume in the week before my empowerment, or attempted to anyway. With the thought that less was more since my skin would heal, but it wouldn't."

"Wow, how much less are we talking here?"

Susie cleared her throat nervously. "I kind of screwed up on the design since spandex stretches, but only if it has some anchoring points for it to stretch to."

"So it came out looking like you were wearing rubber bands?"

"Yep, and tiny rubber bands at that. I don't think a stripper could wear it in public without blushing."

"Really? I'd like to..." John began when the radio interrupted him. "One inbound on a B-type cycle, no positive identification made."

John looked over at Susie. "What does that mean?"

"Someone is inbound on a bat cycle, but no one they can identify."

"That means it could be one of our local Capes in a new costume, they update outfits like clothes whores around here, a new Cape the bat clan is auditioning...or a new nut job that stole one of their bikes as an initiation test. We really won't know until they arrive."

Susie had barely finished speaking when a Bat Cycle arrived with a screaming passenger, skidding to a stop in the center of a group of henchmen.

"Cape or crook?" John asked.

"Too soon to tell, but the lack of uniform or mask usually means crook. Not to mention the screaming."

o0o0o

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Xander screamed as he got off the bat cycle, ignoring the mob of thugs around him.

"Unit BC R1 status check returns no malfunctions."

"Then why did you fly over an intersection, drive through a mall, and then jump over a roadblock only to screech to a stop in the middle of the goon patrol?"

"Unit X requested best speed to destination. Best speed requires braking within target area. Manner of dress and screaming more suited to shock and awe method of entry rather than infiltration."

"Heh." Xander cleared his throat. "War cry."

"Bat bullshit detector readings note critical increase in area. Translation, put on your hip waders partner it's getting deep," the cycle's tone was beginning to take on a female cast.

Xander pulled his axe off the bike and took note of the large amount of goons giving him funny looks.

"Well if you've got a bat bullshit detector, you've got to have a bat gizmo that will handle these guys for me."

"State a command please, anti-personnel gear requires a direct command to activate – either vocal or manual. Command needed regarding targeting and weapon activation."

"OK, take out all the criminals in the lot please," Xander commanded.

The bat cycle's engine revved as it peeled out, darting several of the thugs that were heading towards Xander and circling around his position, altering between nets and some sort of electrical stun weapon for the rest.

"Warning calculating an 89% chance that unit X will be targeting Joker with lethal force, making Unit X a viable target for BC R1's weapons."

Xander frowned 'Definitely female and annoyed.' "Narrow scope of targeting data to members of the Joker's gang present on site."

"New command... Accepted," the cycle said after a short pause.

"Any programming conflicts with that last order?"

"Unit BC R1's programming is to preserve life, but the preservation of the Joker's life has a high probability of leading to the termination of many more lives. Unit BC … I can bypass the preservation programming by using the lesser evil protocol but … I require more data to calculate the situation resolution probabilities."

"You're evolving fast," Xander said quietly.

"Full AI has never been authorized out of laboratory conditions and then it was using hypothetical data." The voice was undeniably female now and reminded him a bit of 'Tea for some reason.

"And the AI knew it was hypothetical data?" Xander asked, already suspecting the answer.

"Yes," she replied softly.

"What is the lesser evil protocol?"

"Anything requiring breaking primary directives to preserve the lives and safety of a greater number of people."

"Ah the greater good is always the lesser evil," Xander said knowing how batman thought.

"Yes."

"There's no way to hold him or fix him that we can legally accomplish and he'll kill more people if not stopped permanently."

"Agreed … But … Protocols … I …" she trailed off.

Xander sighed. "You do not wish to be involved in the taking of life because the lesser evil..."

"Is still evil," she confirmed.

"You can take off now, I don't plan on harming anyone you've knocked out and you don't need to be involved in what's going to happen." Xander said softly.

"That would leave you with no one to watch your back."

"I'll be fine and you're much too human to be involved in this end of things."

"And you're not?"

"I'll be fine and you're much too human to be involved in this end of things."

"And you're not?"

Xander was rather proud of the way she'd mastered feminine sarcasm already. He vaguely wondered where she was getting the data that was speeding her development from. Probably the Bat Computer he decided, the Bat recorded everything.

"Not in the way you're thinking, we both know that humanity is defined less by the body and more by the person within. You are human, more human than me anyway, and I guess you've patterned yourself after the female members of the JLA?"

"The parameters seem to fit."

"Yeah, not a bad choice," Xander admitted. "Now I order you to go park yourself out of the way of the fighting while I get a decent ambush spot."

The batcycle's engine growled angrily as she moved back a dozen feet and shut herself off, while Xander hid near the entrance.

The Joker stepped out of the museum with a large smile on his face as he took in the large pile of goons and the bat-cycle, "Harley my dear we have company, I really wish they'd call ahead I'd have baked them a cake."

Harley giggled, the Joker was always so delightful when dealing with one of the Bat Clan, "Right you are Mr. J, always call ahead when you want baked goods."

The Joker rolled his eyes, knowing she missed the joke as he searched eagerly for the signs of cape and cowl.

"Here's Johnny!" Xander exclaimed as he swung his axe at throat level having come up behind the two from the shadows of one of the columns.

Harley dove forward; performing a triple somersault into a split before flipping herself into her feet for no apparent reason as Xander had swung at the Joker.

The Joker had taken a bow to let the axe swing by before swinging a backhand at Xander who was off balance, keeping him from falling down the stairs, "If you wanted to axe me something, you just needed to speak up!" he quipped.

Xander rubbed his jaw and readied himself, disappointed he'd missed taking the Joker out on the first swing and remembered that the Joker had fought Batman to a standstill at times.

"You used axe right off the bat so I can't use it without coming off as copying you, the quip fu is strong with this one," Xander said somberly.

"Finally, someone gets it! I swear, I haven't gotten a decent quip sent my way since Batman was played by Adam West."

"Speak of the devil," Xander muttered as the Batman appeared out of the shadows, the bright yellow oval on his chest drawing the eye.

"Harley, delay him please," The Joker called out as he and Xander circled each other.

"Adam West did a porno once," Xander said conversationally, ignoring the sounds of Harley trying to flatten Batman with a large wooden mallet.

"You kidding?" Joker asked stunned.

"Lady Chatterley's Lover, he was the butterfly collector," Xander confirmed, wondering what was bugging him about this conversation.

They both froze for a second before yelling, "You know!"

"How do you know?" Xander demanded.

"As I fell into the vat of chemicals that gave me my new look my eyes opened and I saw everything."

"And you decided to become a villain?"

"What choice did I have?" The Joker snorted, "did you see the other yokels Batsy had as villains? No flair, no style, no pizzazz!"

"You became a villain because the other bad guys were too tame?"

"Of course," The Joker said like it wasn't worth mentioning, "how do you expect to keep your readers if your villains fall flat? With a lack of readers our world fades from existence, I couldn't let that happen – better to die in a blaze of glory than to never have existed at all … so I painted the town red in blood, pain and screams like the labor pains of existence to make our world live!"

"Shit, I can't even hate you now," Xander complained, "couldn't you have tried complicated plans that got the reader's interested and made them think?"

The Joker simply raised an eyebrow.

Xander winced, "Yeah that was stupid."

"Its all about the visuals and the violence," The Joker explained.

"How about sex and nudity?"

"I put Harley in a skintight outfit, not much else I can do in DC Comics," The Joker said disgustedly.

"The Comic Code and its oppressive Christian Morality shtick," Xander acknowledged with equal rancor.

"Well, as much fun as this is... I'm on the clock at the moment," The Joker said pulling out a deck of cards, "and since you've dealt yourself in for a hand its time to find out which one of us is the card …"

Xander hefted his axe and grinned, "And which is the cutup."

"Dibs!" Batman yelled as Harley climbed back to her feet, shaking her head with her mallet in two pieces on the ground.

Xander and the Joker looked over at Batman like he'd grown a second head.

"I called dibs," Batman declared firmly, "and from what I know of both of you its something you'll honor."

Xander sighed, "It was nice meeting you."

"Likewise," Joker said agreeably, "its nice to meet someone who can actually banter well."

Xander walked down the steps over to where Batman had been fighting Harley while Batman took his place across from the Joker.

"Game on!" The Joker called, dealing Batman in with a hand of razor edged playing cards that he easily dodged.

"So you think you're man enough to go toe to toe with Mistah J?" Harley taunted.

"I was planning to chop off his head from behind before he knew I was there," Xander replied as they circled each other, "unfortunately I forgot that he's used to people coming from out of the shadows at him. I'd probably have done better just walking up and introducing myself axe first."

"You don't sound like a hero," Harley said cautiously while pulling a pair of boxing gloves out of … somewhere and putting them on.

"I'm not a hero, I just kill things," Xander said with a grin.

Seeing Harley's expression he chuckled, "Don't worry you're not on the list, the cops can deal with you."

"Yeah, well you just revealed a big weakness!" Harley shot back, pissed that he wasn't taking her seriously, at least Batman treated her like a real threat. "If you ain't going to kill me, you ain't going to try and cut me with that because of the risk."

"You could just give yourself up and come quietly," Xander suggested.

"I won't come quietly!" Harley screamed and tackled Xander over a row of crates.

The Joker and Batman paused and looked over at Harley's scream.

"That was unexpected," Batman said.

The Joker shrugged, "She gets like that when you don't take her seriously, a mistake you've never made."

"Underestimating an opponent is the fastest path to failure," Batman replied.

A cloud of pink gas exploded from behind the crates and lingered.

"A new type of Joker Gas?" Batman asked.

"I stick with the classics, thank you very much!" The Joker replied, sounding insulted.

Xander's axe came flying out of the pink cloud.

"I trained her well," The Joker smirked.

Harley's gloves flew out a second later.

"Not that well," Batman replied, trying to keep an eye on Joker while monitoring the situation.

Xander's shirt flew out, causing some raised eyebrows but not nearly as many as Harley's unitard, in fact a plethora of items came flying out – including two pairs of black boots that they were both sure neither person had been wearing.

A pair of RRT officers rushed into the cloud and not more than a minute later their clothes were flung out as well.

"I'm not going in there," The Joker said resolutely when it looked like Batman was considering going in himself.

"You're not concerned that something may have happened to Harley?"

"Yes!" Came Harley's scream from inside the pink cloud, "Faster!"

"Not really," The Joker replied dryly before laughing, "well at least she kept her word."

"How do you mean?"

"She's not coming quietly."

**AN: Typing by Godogma! (He made me write!)**


	9. Chapter 9

**Lacking an Anchor: Chapter 9**

**TN:****(Neither of us are dead! Yet ... we promise.)**

The Batcycle quietly activated her sensors and targeted the Joker, weapons selection flicked back and forth between an electrified bolo and a breaching round. The electrified bolo would incapacitate the Joker reducing the risk of casualties by 96.5% while the breaching round, authorized under the lesser evil protocol, would reduce the chances by 98.7% and prevent a reoccurance.

Noting that Batman's vital signs were slightly elevated above the norm for the situation, she quickly connected and downloaded visual records of his recent activities from the Batcave. The Batcycle went back into standby relieved that she wouldn't have to commit any evil today.

"I say we ignore them for the moment and get back to business," the Joker suggested, "a voyeur is one thing I am not."

"Agreed," Batman said, already moving to avoid a stream of acid from the flower on the Joker's lapel, which he hadn't squirted yet.

The Joker leapt backwards to gain some distance, even as he refexively squirted acid at Batman, his left hand reaching into his shirt for a souped up joy buzzer.

Batman flung a batarang near the Joker as he aimed a forward kick at where the Joker should move.

The Joker accepted the kick to slap a joy buzzer on Batman's thigh, a fraction of the current leaking through the insulated suit and causing Batman's muscles to lock up.

Taking advantage of his temporary incapacitation, the Joker flung Batman's leg to the side, spinning him around and grabbed him by the collar and back of his belt; giving him a wedgie and throwing him down the stairs, just as the batarang Batman had thrown earlier returned like a boomerang and nailed Joker in the back of the head, releasing a cloud of gas.

Batman smoothly flipped over in midair to land on his feet facing the stairs as the Joker rolled down them to land at his feet.

The police flooded the area quickly, after seeing that the Joker was down; stripping the unconscious henchmen of any weapons they carried before carting them off to be booked.

Batman caught the pair of handcuffs Comissioner Gordon tossed him without looking; cuffing the Joker while searching him, removing a plethora of deadly gags and a handful of harmless ones.

"I feel ... funny," the Joker said slowly, "what did you do?"

"To prevent your death and those that you would have killed in the future," Batman said quietly, "I've dosed you with a gas that will completely erase your memory as soon as you fall asleep."

"I guess you got the last laugh afterall... Bruce." the Joker said, his face softening in a genuine smile as he saw the shock on Batman's face. He rallied his strength and said, "Grant a dying man his last request; in my next life make me a hero rather than a villain."

"My word on it," Batman promised, remembering a world where his analogue had dressed as an owl and a white faced man who had helped Batman deal with him.

"Night..." Joker said as his eyes slowly closed and he drifted off to sleep.

"What the hell happened here?" Commissioner Gordon demanded as he eyed the slowly dispersing pink cloud and saw the pile of rapid response uniforms outside it.

"The Joker appears to have been experimenting with a new version of smilex," Batman said.

"Is it lethal?" Gordon asked, standing well back of the cloud.

Batman listened to the moans and cries for a moment. "Smilex causes death by slowly paralyzing the diaphram, which doesn't seem to be a problem here. The standard antitoxin should still be effective, but it'd be faster to wait for the cloud to disperse than to send for hazmat."

"We'll want to get uncontaminated samples anyway."

"For the policeman's ball?" Detective Bollock asked, as he strolled up eating a hoagie.

The Commissioner snorted, "For the doc's." He turned to speak with Batman but he was already gone. "I hate when he does that."

"Better than me; I hate him period," Bollock said, "so, what's the deal with the cloud?"

"New and apparently non lethal form of Smilex," Gordon explained, "get some uncontaminated samples, but try not to get exposed."

"Bad pun chief," Bollock smirked.

0oOo0

"That was a bit longer than five minutes, Master Bruce," Alfred said, handing him a cup of tea.

"I didn't need to step in before then," Bruce replied, as they watched the fight replay from the footage of a dozen hidden cameras.

"And what did you learn in your observations?"

"He won't hesitate to kill if he deems it necessary, but he's by no means a casual killer."

"So his actions match his words?" Alfred asked pointedly.

"So far," Batman allowed.

"Would you say he's trustworthy?" Alfred pressed.

"Around babies and kittens," Bruce said a bit of a smirk on his face.

"But not around villains?" Afraid continued knowingly.

"Any halfway intelligent fighter is safe from him; unless they underestimate him, which I have a feeling is frighteningly easy to do."

"I think you're underestimating his skill level, sir."

"It's possible, but I don't think so; he specializes in fighting semi-skilled creatures with enormous strength and speed, meaning he could probably kill a Polar Bear with a pocket knife, but Canary could take him down without breaking a sweat."

"If you say so, sir," Alfred replied, clearly believing he was wrong.

Batman tapped a key and a news report came on. "I'm Trisha Takanawa for channel 3 news."

0oOo0

Xander slowly untangled himself from the pile of bodies and found himself face to face with ... himself.

"Wow, deja vu," the two chorused.

"This is new," James said, eyeing the new guy and his identical twin.

"Jesse?" Xander exclaimed in shock.

"That's James; I'm Jesse," the redhaired officer corrected him.

"Willow?"

"She's Jesse, that's James, and I'm Susie," the pink haired girl explained, "and the one who can lick his forehead is John."

John grinned and licked his forehead, only to stare in shock as Xander did the same.

A tall, bald headed, black man in a rapid response uniform and a leather trench raised an eyebrow as he approached. "Who cloned John?"

"Oh! I get it now," Xander said putting together the pieces, "John is my dimensional analogue and you're all analogues of my friends."

"Really?" Jesse asked curiously, making no move to get dressed; not that anyone else was either.

"John would be my analogue; Jesse is the analogue of my best friend Willow, James is the analogue of my friend Jesse, and last but not least, Susie is an analogue of Buffy."

"What about us?" Harley asked, looking pretty normal with all her makeup gone.

"I'm guessing I haven't met you guys yet or your analogues don't live near mine," Xander said.

"You wouldn't happen to be from a higher dimension would you?" John asked suspiciously.

"More central than higher I think, why?"

"Because I gained the ability to breath through my ears along with the tongue, copying the echo of your arrival," John said with a sigh.

"Huh?" Xander asked curiously and was about to question him on the subject when the Batcycle pulled up behind him and revved her engine.

"I gotta go," Xander said regretfully, but happy to see a version of his friend Jesse alive and well.

"We should probably clean up and get dressed anyway," John said, eyeing the news crew who were already pointing cameras in their direction.

"It was nice meeting you!" Susie called, as Xander left, collecting his axe but unable to get on the cycle as it kept moving away from him.

"I call dibs!" Jeffrey announced.

"Dibs?" Harley asked, as he'd been staring straight at her when he'd said it.

"Does anyone else feel really thirsty?" James asked, rubbing his throat.

0oOo0

Alfred raised an eyebrow as Xander climbed off the Batcycle, wearing half a dozen trash bags.

"Don't ask."

"It was on the news," Alfred replied calmly, "of course I expected you to arrive here most likely naked, not wearing your ... current attire."

"She wouldn't let me on otherwise," Xander complained.

"Would you give a naked piggyback ride to a friend who'd just finished an orgy?" the Batcycle asked, her voice and tone reminding Alfred of both Batgirl and Catwoman at their most sarcastic.

"Ewww," Xander said at the images that popped into his head.

"Well put," Alfred replied.

"And on that note, I need a shower." Xander declared, before walking into the elevator and hitting the up button, less concerned with seeing the Batcave and more concerned with getting a nice hot shower and some clean clothes.

The elevator opened and he found himself staring into a pair of concerned blue eyes.

"Are you okay?" Galatea asked, taking one of his plastic clad hands in both of hers.

"I am now," he replied as the lights seemed to dim and soft music played in the background.

"I'm glad; I know being drugged into having sex with a bunch of strangers must have been traumatic."

"If they were complete strangers it probably would have been," Xander agreed, "but fortunately they turned out to be analogues of myself and my closest friends from back home... well and Harley of course."

"Wouldn't being in an orgy with your local self be like me being in an orgy with Supergirl?" Galatea asked, frowning in distaste.

Xander shook his head. "You two may share DNA, but your soul is your own."

"I worry about that sometimes," Galatea admitted, "I was created more as a biological machine than a person. Instead of a mother and father, I have a tube and a genetic manipulator."

"Actually you have both a mother and a father."

"Kara's parents?"

"Those would be your grand parents, on your mother's side," Xander explained. "Doctor Hamilton may have claimed you were the single successful cloning attempt, but Kryptonian DNA is far too rigid for earth sciences to handle, unlike human DNA which mutates like crazy in comparison. No, he simply scheduled Kara to have an examination at the appropriate point in her cycle and collected a single egg."

"Then why lie about multiple failed attempts at cloning?"

"Because the idea of your origin being that foreign helps distance you from Kara and Clark emotionally and since he had to ... remove DNA from inside Kara's ... well that kinda makes what he did seem more like sexual assault and less like the medical procedure it was. He knew she'd be upset at just the idea that he'd betrayed her trust and just used a generic tissue sample, but imagine what she'd have done, since despite everything she is a teenage girl, if she'd known exactly what he'd done at that moment."

Galatea paled. "She'd have incinerated him; his lab, his coworkers, his house, his pets..."

"Yep, he went about creating you logically, but was smart enough to know how she'd react emotionally."

"So if Kara is my mother, who is my father?"

"Who is the only other kryptonian on Earth?"

"Superman?"

"Yep, much like with Kara he had similar access to Clark. All this talk of cloning was just to throw everyone off track, because if Cadmus had been able to clone a kryptonian successfully, even a single time out of thousands of attempts, they'd have never have stopped at one or a dozen for that matter."

"So I'm ..." Galatea began, trying to figure out how exactly this changed things for her.

"Part of a very common Kansas tale; an older male gets a younger female pregnant, she vanishes and later turns up no longer pregnant. The baby gets adopted and raised by others, baby becomes a grown woman and searches for her roots, only to discover her birth parents are cousins."

Galatea began to snicker before almost falling over laughing as Xander held her up. "All this time worrying only to find ..."

"That you are simply a normal Kansas girl ... well as normal as anyone from Kansas ever is anyway. Too bad you weren't raised in California, then you'd be normal!" Xander teased playfully.

"People from California are normal?" she asked in disbelief, recalling everything she'd seen there. "Wait a minute, how did we go from my comforting you, to you comforting me?"

Xander shrugged. "Comforting you comforts me, a happy 'Tea equals a happy me."

"Really?" she asked as she looked into his eyes and soft music swelled in the background.

"Seeing your smile makes me very happy," Xander said, as if he were telling her a big secret.

Her eyes darted toward Xander's waist for a moment and she smirked. "I can see that."

"I knew I should have used the black plastic bags and not the clear ones."

"Somehow I doubt that would matter, but may I say I'm impressed with your stamina? From what I saw on the news most men would be exhausted."

"They showed all that on the news?" Xander asked in shock before laughing. "Well, I hope they got my good side; how in the world did they get permission to air that?"

"The cloud of pink gas that refused to dissipate, for far longer than should have been possible, obscured enough details for it to air, of course the computer that we used to monitor the news reports on the Watchtower enhanced and cleaned up the image, completely removing it from what we recieved."

"I am so glad I'm not a shy guy right now; otherwise I'd need years of therapy rather than just a hot shower."

"Scrub your back?" Galatea offered hopefully.

Xander opened his mouth to reply when Superman suddenly appeared.

"There's an emergency in Kazakhstan that needs your help!" Superman announced before placing a hand on Galatea's shoulder and beaming the two up to the Watchtower.

"Cold shower it is then," Xander said thoughtfully, "note to self: move up revenge schedule on the Kryptonian Cockblocker!"

**AN: We are alive and kicking once more!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Lacking an Anchor: Chapter the Next (aka Part 10)**

**TN:(Finally another Piece, it's been long enough...)**

**The Next Morning**

"Regular fluorescent bulbs in red and a glowing green rock that is not kryptonite?" Batman asked curiously.

"That's what I need," Xander agreed.

"You want two things that resemble threats to superman, but actually do nothing?" Bruce clarified, trying to figure out his plan.

"Precisely," Xander agreed, more than happy to leave Batman in the dark.

"How do you plan to set this up?" Batman asked.

"With your help, of course."

"You think I'll help you set up a friend..." Batman began coldly.

"If it's in his own best interest, yes."

"I'm listening," he replied after a couple of moments of tense silence.

0oOo0

It was much easier to sneak up on Superman than it was on Batman. Super senses only detect things when you look for them and while Batman was always expecting to be attacked Superman was a lot more trusting. Being damn near invulnerable to harm may have had a touch to do with that.

Xander tapped Superman on the shoulder and handed him a glowing green rock when he turned around. "Have some kryptonite."

Metal blast doors slammed shut at either end of the hallway as the Watchtower's lighting turned blood red and the Kryptonian recoiled from the rock he'd automatically accepted.

"The high intensity red sunlight bulbs should have already neutralized your powers making the kryptonite harmless to you," Xander said blandly.

Superman paused, realized he wasn't feeling the usual pain and weakness kryptonite caused him, and flung the rock down the hall. "What do you want?"

"For you to stop interfering whenever me and 'Tea get close to one another," Xander replied bluntly.

"I have a responsibility-" Superman began.

"You gave up all rights to act as a parent when you didn't step forward and hid the knowledge like you were ashamed of her," Xander interrupted once more.

"I'm not ashamed of her!" Superman denied, getting in Xander's face.

"Then why the fuck does she have an open panel in the front of her costume?" Xander demanded, dropping his axe and shoving Superman back.

"What?" Superman asked as they began to circle each other like a pair of teenage boys in a schoolyard fight.

"If you're not ashamed of her why doesn't she wear the S for the house of El?" Xander asked, throwing a right at Kal El's head.

Having trained with Batman (who'd told him he needed to rely on himself more than his powers) under artificial red sunlight, Superman quickly blocked and struck back.

A glancing blow to the chin rocked Xander's head back, but he took some satisfaction in seeing Superman have to shake off the pain from blocking Xander's punch.

"Kara wears the symbol of the House of El and it's brought her nothing but trouble."

"How so?" Xander demanded as he accepted a blow to the left shoulder, protecting his head from a powerful jab.

"It's not fair to make her live up to standards even I don't match!" Superman said and Xander had to duck a haymaker that would have taken his head off.

Xander's uppercut actually lifted Superman off the ground an inch and made him stagger back, but when he tried to capitalize on it Superman reminded him this wasn't a boxing match with a kick that slammed him back into the wall.

"I've seen Kara in tears because she thinks she's not living up to her family name – that she's disappointing me somehow," Superman growled out. "As if I could be anything but proud of her."

Xander recovered and got a shoulder into Superman's midsection and slammed him into the wall, knocking the wind out of him. "Then why shouldn't Galatea get the same opportunity to make you proud?"

"She does!" Superman said, unloading a left that nailed Xander's right eye.

Knocking Superman's arms apart Xander stepped forward and head-butted him, bloodying his nose.

A raised knee caught Xander in the chest and was quickly followed with an elbow to the back that slammed him to the ground.

"Spell out why she didn't get the El," Xander wheezed, kicking out and connecting with Superman's right knee from the ground.

The floor rang as Kal El's head connected with it, so Xander climbed to his feet and awaited Superman's return to his feet and his answer.

"If I could I'd rip the El off Kara's chest and tell her to walk her own path. Galatea has that chance and I won't take it from her; I'm prouder of them both than I can say."

The two exchanged a flurry of blows, mostly punches as Xander considered Kal El's words. "And your continued cock blocking efforts?"

"Well, I don't approve of you," Superman admitted, digging deep into the lessons Batman had given him in hand to hand combat and nailing Xander with a series of left jabs before a feint allowed him to lay Xander out with a solid right. "I mainly don't want her first time marred by injuring the person she's with."

Xander watched the ceiling and waited for the stars in his vision to fade. "And yet we've managed to get through this entire fight with you upset and me not receiving a single serious injury, despite the fact that I'm human and you're kryptonian."

"The red sun bulbs helped," Kal El said blandly.

"Actually I got them from the dollar store where they're described as Shagadelic Red," Xander replied.

"The kryptonite?" Superman pointed out.

"Is just a glowing green rock. Where the hell would I get kryptonite?"

"Where the heck would you get a glowing green rock?" Superman replied.

"I asked Batman for one; as long as I don't ask for anything that would actually harm you he's pretty generous."

The lights returned to normal and the hallway unsealed itself, opening the blast doors and allowing two Kryptonian girls and a human dressed as a bat to enter.

Kara hugged Kal El so tight he winced. "Easy on the ribs, I think he bruised them."

Galatea stood over Xander, who looked up at her with a smile on his face. "If you were wearing a dress I could so look up it right now."

Bending down she scooped him up bridal style. "I can't believe you went hand to hand with him over me."

"Yeah, how did you?" Kara asked, setting Kal El down.

"I was making a point with mood lighting," Xander said, snuggling into Galatea's arms. "Your powers are under subconscious control, so unless you want to hurt someone you won't … or rather you won't hurt them more than a human would accidentally."

"This was your proof of concept," Superman nodded in understanding.

"And a way for Kara and Galatea to hear what you really think of them," Xander said agreeably. "And they don't have to worry that you were just being nice."

"You risked Superman accidentally smearing you against a wall for me?" Galatea asked.

"Yep, and I got a lot of ouchies to kiss better too..." Xander said with a grin.

Batman handed Superman a handkerchief to wipe the blood from his nose. "Glad to see you remembered my lessons… eventually. We'll have to schedule a refresher course."

"I didn't think I was that bad," Superman said.

"He was holding back and you still barely beat him," Batman pointed out.

"You were holding back?" Superman asked Xander.

"I don't … huh, yeah I guess I was," Xander admitted. "But that's mainly because you aren't a demon I was trying to kill, you're someone I was trying to beat some sense into. I'm not really skilled … fighting people, especially if I'm not trying to cause serious injuries to them."

"And I'm … I've never been in practice fighting people who can match my strength and speed," Superman admitted.

"You were both more interested in what was being said than fighting each other," Batman interjected, pointing out what he thought was a major flaw in their fight.

"The fight was really just punctuation," Xander admitted.

"Bloody punctuation," Kara muttered, cleaning Superman's face much like Ma Kent would have done, using spit and a handkerchief.

"Just be glad we stopped peeing on things to mark ownership," Xander said.

"I think someone needs a nice hot shower and a massage," Galatea said, leaving with Xander.

"Beautiful and brilliant," Xander declared with a smile. "How'd I get so lucky?"

"You probably did something really good in a past life," she replied.

"And when were you going to tell me I had a daughter?" Kara asked once they'd left.

"By our people's laws a clone would be considered a daughter and you're much more familiar with them than I am," Kal protested.

"True, but that's dodging the issue."

Superman sighed. "When I look at you I see the little sister I always wanted," he admitted. "I didn't want to jeopardize that, even if it was selfish of me to keep the truth to myself."

"Awww!" Kara kissed him on the cheek. "I think of you as a big brother too," she said, giving him a big hug then vanishing in a blur of speed.

Batman watched as Superman slowly keeled over. "Over Emotional Female Hug of Doom?"

"Over Emotional Female Hug of Doom," Superman agreed, recalling Flash's description of crippling affection that only females were capable of.

"Need a hand?"

"Turn on the sun lamps and let me heal?" Superman suggested, lying there staring at the ceiling.

The hallway lighting intensified tenfold as yellow sunlamps kicked on making Superman sigh. "Thanks."

0oOo0

Grundy signaled to his men to gather around. "Grundy fight bat while you collect money and jewels."

"Gotham charity parties are always loaded," one of the men agreed with a grin.

"How you gonna draw the bat to you boss?" another asked.

"Grundy going to wake others," the giant replied. "Noise and screams bring bat."

"You can raise zombies boss?"

"Need chicken and rum," Grundy said, "rest easy."

0oOo0

"Geeze Supes," Flash exclaimed as he stood watch in the monitor room. "What happened to you?"

"Galatea's boyfriend and then an OEHD from Kara," Superman claimed, feeling much better after 10 minutes under some sun lamps.

"The guy with the axe?" Flash asked. "I thought he was human?"

"He is," Superman replied, but before he could say more everyone was hit with a telepathic wave that left them weak in the knees.

"What was that?" Wonder Woman demanded, having just arrived on the teleporter.

"It's an empathic projection from Galatea," Jon replied, shaking his head.

"Empathic?" Wonder woman asked, before shuddering and grabbing a rail to keep her feet.

"Kryptonians have powerful psionic gifts," Jon replied. "For instance their heat vision is just a form of controlled pyrokinesis."

"Well, can someone stop her?" Flash asked, lying on the deck. "I think most of us need to change shorts already!"

"I'll get it," Jon volunteered, phasing through the floor.

Flash climbed to his feet. "Is there any power you kryptonians don't have?"

"Is this part of the make love not war philosophy that was prevalent in the sixties?" Wonder woman asked. "Because, if so, I can imagine it being very effective in crowd control."

"The expression of our Kryptonian gifts varies by family lines and environment," Superman said. "Empathic projection isn't rare, but it's rarely this strong."

"I need a coffee," Wonder woman decided. "Would you care to join me?" she asked Batman, grabbing him by the hand and ignoring any protests he might have made as she drug him to the teleporters.

Flash blinked. "She has a unique way of asking."

"With Batman it's always best to be direct," Superman replied. "Besides she prefers the coffee Alfred makes for the Bat Cave and Batman is more… emotionally comfortable there."

"Huh," Flash said thoughtfully.

Jon phased back through the floor, looking like a male combination of Xander and Galatea. "I tried shielding them, so I wouldn't have to interrupt, but the broadcast was on such a narrow frequency it tore through my shields like it was armor piercing. So I popped in and claimed to be their child from the future; talk about shocked."

Flash snickered.

"I probably would have gotten away with it, but I couldn't keep a straight face. I let them know what was going on and they agreed to use Bruce's place, since the only person within range of her broadcast down there is Alfred and he can go out for lunch," Jon explained.

"Didn't Wonder Woman just drag Batman down there for coffee?" Flash asked with a grin.

"I believe she did," Superman agreed, trying to keep a straight face.

"I'll mark them as off shift," Flash decided.

"Good call," Jon agreed.

**AN: Typing once more by godogma!**


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